Holdertale
by Holdertale
Summary: An interdimensionally lost Touta Konoe jumps down a hole to find something, anything, that might take him home. But instead of an ancient artifact or magical gateway, he finds an adventure, and new friends. Spoilers for up to Chapter 120ish of UQ Holder! and for all of Undertale.
1. Flowey the Flower

I'm Touta Konoe - an immortal. I'm kind of a vampire, and kind of not - it's... complicated. I was made as part of an experimental cloning program to produce a wizard with the power to absorb magic, and to dispel it. It kind of succeeded, I can manage it if I focus. Jeez, when I put it that way I sound like a real freak.

But I can't beat the guy I was made to beat - me and my friends fought him, when he tried to kidnap me, and we had no chance. One of my pals tried to teleport me away, and they tried to stop it, or something, I'm not really sure - and something went wrong. I ended up in a world that wasn't my own, some alternate dimension or universe or something. It's a little bit like the Earth I know, but everything was all wrong.

And there I was stuck, looking for a way out. But I found a lead - I learned of a mountain where ancient magical powers sealed away horrific monsters thousands of years ago. A mountain nobody comes back from. Mount Ebott. Ain't much, but interdimensional travel is hard - this is the best lead I've got. Maybe some horrific monster has some ancient artifact, or some mystical power, and they can send me home? No harm in checking, right?

I looked around the mountain and the only interesting thing I found was a cavern with a big hole in it. "Nowhere to go but down," I said to myself, and I jumped into the hole.

It was a pretty deep hole - the fall might have killed a normal person. I landed in a cave with some columns and a patch of flowers, growing under a lonely spot formed by the distant light from above. I walked around the flowers, saying to the patch, "Stay strong." It just felt appropriate, with those flowers there, struggling to keep existing in a world that seemed so hostile to them, with the light they needed so far away.

I walked along, and soon I walked into a big, dark cavern with another spot of light - occupied by a single flower. That had a face. And greeted me with a "Howdy!"

"Hi," I responded.

"I'm Flowey the flower!" it continued, "Hmm, You're new to the underground, arent'cha?"

"Hey, Flowey," I responded, "Yup."

"Golly, you must be so confused. Someone ought to teach you how things work around here. Guess little old me will have to do! Ready? Here we go!"

"Okay," I said.

"See that... uh... there's no heart. Do you have a soul?" The flower asked.

"I'm pretty sure I do," I responded, shrugging. "Maybe not? How would I know if I didn't?"

"Well, it's fine," the flower said. "Anyway, you're weak now, but you can get strong if you get lots of LV. LV stands for LOVE, of course! You want some LOVE, don't you?"

"Aww, sure!"

"Down here, LOVE is shared through... Little white... 'friendliness pellets.'" A handful of white seeds rose up around the flower, hovering in the air. "Are you ready? Get as many as you can!"

The seeds flew at me, and I snatched them all out of the air. "Huh. LOVE feels tingly," I said. "almost hurts. So, what do I do with it? Like... eat it?"

"Uh... uh... yeah! You should eat the friendliness pellets!"

I threw one into my mouth, crunching down on it. "Tastes tingly. And a bit like unsalted sunflower seeds. But I need to show my LOVE too, right?" I flicked my wrist, tossing one of the pellets back at him.

* * *

"Howdy! I'm Flowey the flower! You look new to the underground, so I'm going to tell you about sharing LOVE!"

"Hey, Flowey," I responded, "Sounds like fun."

"Down here, LOVE is shared through... Little white... 'friendliness pellets.'" white seeds started to rise up from the flower, tens and tens of them, "Just... give me a moment... to get a whole lot of LOVE ready for you!"

"Okay," I say. "Take your time. Hey, do you know of any big magical portals that might be down here? Like... to other places, maybe? Or something like that?"

"Oh, yeah, I'll tell you all about them after I'm done sharing all this LOVE! I want you to catch every single one of these pellets, okay?" He said. "Don't miss even one!"

By now there were hundreds of little pellets hovering in the air. "Challenge accepted!" I said, taking a stance. He threw them, and, one by one, I snatched them out of the air, tossing each to the side to grab the next as the torrent of pellets flew at me. "Whew!" I say once I'd cleared the air of them. "They're tingly. My fingers actually kind of hurt!"

* * *

"Oh, yeah, I'll tell you all about them after I'm done sharing all this LOVE! I want you to catch every single one of these pellets, okay?" He said. "Don't miss even one - and you have to hold them all at once, you can't drop them!"

By now there were hundreds of little pellets hovering in the air. "Wow, that seems hard... no, I think I have an idea," I said, pulling out my hula hoop and setting it up around my body. It swung gently around my body as I focused myself with Revolution - uh, that's my name for the technique I use to rotate the magic around in my body and sort it out. As the pellets flew at me, I put my left hand forth, scooping every pellet into a sphere of magic that formed before my hand. Once the last was gone, I crushed the sphere, absorbing the power into my body. "Ah, I thought so - friendliness pellets are made of magic after all! I can hold as many as I need to!"

The flower stared at me.

* * *

"Oh, yeah, I'll tell you all about them after I'm done sharing all this LOVE! I want you to catch every single one of these bullets... er, pellets, okay?" He said. "Don't miss even one - and you have to hold them all at once, you can't drop them!"

By now there were hundreds of little... pellets... hovering in the air, all around me. I pulled out my hula hoop, focusing myself with Revolution. "I can do that," I say. As the pellets flew at me, my left hand dashed forward, grabbing one after another and drawing them into my body using Magia Erebea.

* * *

"Howdy! I'm Flowey the flower!" the talking flower said, while white seeds started to materialize all about me. "What brings you down here?"

"I'm from a different universe," I said, "and I'm looking for a way to get home. Like, a spell, or a magical portal, or something."

"How nice!" the flower said. "Shame you won't make it - because YOU'LL BE DEAD!" the white seeds hurtled towards me, from all directions, as a clear attack.

I whipped out my hula hoop in an instant, focusing my power in my right fist and using my Magic Can

* * *

"Howdy! I'm Flowey the flower!" the talking flower said, "and I'm here to help humans like you get through the underground, to the magical portal at the end!"

"Really? Score!" I yelled out. "That's awesome! I can't believe my luck! Thanks, Flowey, I'm Touta."

"Good to meet you, Touta," the flower said, smiling. "You need to be careful though, the underground is full of monsters that will want to kill you!"

"Goodness, is that a human?" Another voice asked. A kindly-looking humanoid goat wearing a tabard approached, speaking in a soft and motherly voice. "Are you hurt? I can heal you."

"Ugh, Seriously?" the flower groaned.

* * *

"Good to meet you, Touta," the flower said, smiling. "You need to be careful though, some monsters will want to kill you! I'll talk to you more later... when you need me." He ducked into the ground, vanishing.


	2. Toriel

"Wow," I said, still stunned at how lucky I'd been in even the short time I was down here. What a helpful guy to run into right when I got here!

"Goodness, is that a human?" I heard a motherly voice asking from the darkness. The owner of that voice approached, revealing herself as a kindly-looking humanoid goat wearing a tabard. "Do not be afraid, my child - I am Toriel, caretaker of the ruins. I pass through this place every day to see if anyone has fallen down. You are the first human to come here in a long time. Come, I will guide you through the catacombs. This way." She started walking.

"Oh, wow, thanks," I said, catching up to her. "You've been really helpful already and I just got here. This place is pretty awesome. When I read in an old book that there were monsters under this mountain I was expecting things that would try to eat me, not demihumans and flowers."

"You like the flowers here?" Toriel said, "I do too. They're quite beautiful, and they grow everywhere in the underground the sunlight reaches. Anyway, welcome to your new home, the Ruins. This place is full of puzzles - ancient fusions between diversions and doorkeys. You'll need to solve them to move from room to room. Get used to seeing them." As she spoke, she walked over a number of switches and opened a door.

"Oh, cool. Good to know," I said. "There a puzzle in this next room too?"

"Yes, child. You will need to hit some switches - I labeled them for you."

"Oh, that seems easy enough," I said, looking over the room. "Uh... two out of three switches? That's not much of a doorkey. It would seriously not take long to figure that out by trial and error. I guess most of the underground's security is from the giant pit at the start, isn't it? Or just killing people who show up."

"Don't speak like that. No human who's come down here has deserved to die," Toriel said, a cold edge in her voice.

"Oh man, I'm sorry," I said as I flipped the switches. "Did they die from the fall? Or are some of the monsters here just... jerks?"

"It's nothing you need to concern yourself with," Toriel said briskly. "Don't worry about it. Good job with the switches! Come, I need to show you to this combat dummy."

"You want to train me for combat?" I asked. "Because if your idea of training me for puzzles was that switch room, then... yup. That dummy looks like it's about to collapse. Looks like it'd be more challenging to keep it from falling apart than it would be for me to break it."

"Break it? Oh heavens no! I'd like you to talk to the dummy. You might get into a fight with a monster, and you'll need to stall for time until I can come save you."

"Uh." I looked at the rickety dummy, then at the expectant-looking Toriel. So... expectant. I walked over to the dummy and carefully started adjusting it to try to get it to hold together a little better. "Wish I had some tools on me," I mumbled to myself, "or even a sewing kit. The stitches on this thing look like they're gonna give out any time."

Toriel's face lit up. "Oh, it'll be so nice to have a little handiman around! Maybe I could even try using the stove."

"Aww, I don't know all that much. Just what I picked up from my friends back home. I love learning new things."

"Oh, well! I can definitely help with that," she said as she escorted me to the next room. "I love teaching! There's another puzzle in this room - perhaps you can solve it?"

"Cool," I said. I spotted a frog down the hall ahead and waved. "Oh, hey, another monster! Sup, frog guy? What's your name?"

The frog looked at me, then looked at Toriel... then slunk away, his eyes locked on Toriel. "Huh. Toriel... are the other monsters here afraid of you?"

"No, nonsense," she said. She stopped before a room full of spikes on the floor. "Here's the puzzle, but... here, take my hand."

"Well, okay," I said, taking her hand. She started promptly leading me through the room, the spikes retracting as we went.

"Puzzles seem awfully dangerous for now," she said as we walked.

"Uh. Look, Toriel... how young do you think I am? I may look short, but I'm sixteen years old. I think. Hard to keep track these days."

"Well," she responded curtly, "I am hundreds of years old, so I know best."

I frowned as we moved into the next room. I'd gotten this attitude before - and I didn't like it then either.

"Well," she said, "You have done excellently so far, child. However... I have a difficult request to ask of you. I would like you to walk to the end of this room by yourself. Forgive me for this."

"What? Walk down a hallway?" I asked, frankly offended by how childishly I was being treated, when she turned and started running down the hallway. "Oh is that how it is? Well... this should be as easy as just getting a good grip on the earth..." I dug my toes in and lept forward, crossing tens of meters per step using basic shunpo technique and getting across the room in a few seconds. I positioned myself before the room's exit, intending on looking smug, and I turned around to see Toriel still running, at a glacial pace compared to my shunpo, continually looking back as she ran.

Rather than reaching the end of the room and facing me, however, she slipped behind a pillar of the ruins and peeked out back the way we'd come. "Really?" I mumbled to myself, and I walked over behind her. "Toriel."

"Oh!" she spun around, raising a hand to her chest, palm facing forward, before lowering it as she noticed it was me. "Child! You... you did very well. You are as fast as you are clever. But... I wanted to test your independence, and... I suppose it's fine. If you get into any danger, I'm sure you could run from it. There's something else I'd like to ask of you - I must attend to some business, so I must leave you alone for a while. It would be dangerous to explore, so please remain here. In fact..."

Toriel stopped a moment, pulling an old-looking cell phone from a pocket. "I have an idea. I will give you a cell phone. If you need anything, just call. Be good, alright?"

I shrugged. The cell phone I had on me didn't work in this world anyway. "All right, I'll take it."

"Great! Now, be good." She walked away.

And I followed suit a moment after.


	3. Ruins

I wasn't a couple steps out of the room before my new cell phone got a call. "Hello. This is Toriel. You have not left the room, have you? There are a few puzzles ahead that I have yet to..."

"It's fine, Toriel," I said. "Don't worry."

"All right. Be good, would you?"

I hung up and went looking around. There was little of note. A tasty piece of candy - I wouldn't have minded licorice though - a couple talkative monsters, a couple crumbling floors I had to jump past, some spikes and a ghost I had to jump over. I almost felt bad just parkouring around the place since it's clear a lot of thought was put into those puzzles, but it felt good for my ego after Toriel bruised it with her expectant overprotectiveness. I tried saying hello to lots of monsters, but they weren't talkative. One offered me a vegetable, and I realized I was actually pretty hungry, even raw vegetables sounded pretty appealing.

Around then, I got another call. "Hello. This is Toriel. Tell me, do you prefer cinnamon or butterscotch?"

I blinked. "Honestly... I haven't gotten many chances to have sweets in my lifetime. Yukihime set a pretty strict diet for me, and I've been poor since I've been in Holder. So really, either sounds good. Any sweets would be nice to try. Or anything, really, I'm hungry."

"Oh. Oh! That's... all right. Thank you for being patient." She hung up.

A few moments later, I found a city. I dialed up Toriel and I said as I looked it over, "Toriel, are you in the city? It looks... abandoned..."

"Oh! Stay right there, I'll be there to get you!" Within a moment, she came up behind me, huffing. "You wanted to turn left earlier, that would lead you to my home. Oh dear, I'm sorry, you aren't hurt are you? Not a scratch... impressive. Come along, small one, I have a surprise for you, though I suppose I won't be able to hide it any longer.

I followed her to a neat-looking house. "You're baking something," I said as we walked through the door.

"Yes! A butterscotch-cinnamon pie. It worked out well that you like both," she said.

"Huh. How does that even work? Did you add cinnamon to the top after baking the pie? Or did you bake it into the crust?"

"Both! I wanted to celebrate your arrival; we will have the usual snail pie later."

"Ah." That sounded familiar; I'd lived underground before. At least it sounded better than 'sea cucumber saute'.

"Come, I have another surprise for you," she said, taking my hand again and leading me down a hallway. "Look, a room of your own!"

"Uh. Toriel, I'm very thankful for your assistance," I said with a polite bow, "but how long..."

"Oh, do you smell something burning? I've got to see to that pie! Make yourself at home!" and she hurried off.

I sighed. I knew I was going to have to disappoint this sweet lady eventually. "And what was she talking about, hundreds of years old? How fast do monsters age? Did I manage to find the closest thing to immortals on this planet? Heh, maybe I should invite the lady to join UQ Holder..." I said, pacing along the hallway. "It'd be hilarious if I go off to some other universe and come back with a little army of helpful flowers and goat ladies. Yeah, so what if you're the most powerful mage in the solar system! We have butterscotch pie!" My stomach grumbled at that - I was seriously hungry.

I stopped before a mirror in the hallway, grinning at my complete lack of reflection. "Heh. Not like I haven't been called a monster. I really need to ask Yukihime why I've never wanted to drink blood. Maybe we're a kind of vampire that just eats normal food? Wait, but Kitty drank my blood once... bah..."

"Might as well wait for the pie," I sighed, going to 'my room'. Bigger than my room at home, and no bunk bed. I sat on the bed, pulled out my hula hoop, and started spinning. The powers within me separated with ease. "Trained my ass off to gain ultimate power, and I'm still nothing in front of my grandfather," I grumbled. "Magia Erebea? Magic Cancel? Lot of good they did me. Forget saving him or killing him, I can't even defend myself against him."

I must have wallowed in my own pathos for hours, because I was only brought out of it by Toriel poking her head into the room. "Oh! Child, you are awake," she said. "Would you like a slice of pie?"

My hula hoop clattered down. I collapsed it with one hand and took the pie with the other. "Thank you, Toriel," I said.

"What an interesting way to play with a hula hoop," Toriel said. "I thought normally you had to touch it to swing it around."

"Well, usually you do," I said, trying the pie. "This is delicious! It's nice to eat someone else's home cooking for a change, too."

"I'm so happy you think so! You won't have to do any cooking, child, I can handle it just fine." She turned around to leave.

"Hold up, Toriel," I said, my voice flat. "You keep implying I'm gonna be staying here - I'm afraid that's not gonna happen. I'm down here for a reason. I'm planning on going to the end of the underground."

"O... oh? Really?" She said, her voice shaking. "If you'll excuse me, I have... something to do."

"Okay," I said, taking another bite of the pie as she left. I took my time eating it, and was just licking the plate when I heard a sharp noise - like an explosion at a distance.

I lept to my feet, dashing out of 'my room' towards the noise, as it rattled off again, and again. I lept to the bottom of a staircase and shunpoed down the hallway beyond it in a couple of seconds, and came to find Toriel, standing in a chamber, hurling fire magic at a door. "Toriel, what's going on? Are you in danger?" I asked.

Her voice was composed. "You wish to know how to reach the end of the underworld? Through this door is the passage out of the Ruins - and I am going to destroy it. Be a good child and go upstairs."

"Uh, Toriel... sorry, but no. Hell no." I responded.

"You don't understand. Every human that falls down here meets the same fate. I have seen it again and again. They come. They leave. They die. You naive child... if you leave the Ruins... they... Asgore... will kill you. I am only protecting you. Go to your room. Don't try to stop me."

I walked towards her. "I'm afraid I can't do that."

"You want to leave so badly?" she said. "All right. There is only one solution to this. Prove to me you are strong enough to survive."

"All right," I said, bowing. "Please."

She responded by hurling a blast of flames at me. I started ducking and weaving through them, drawing closer to her.

"Are you going to attack?" She said.

"You're going to need more fire if you want to be that threatening," I answered calmly.

She obliged, hurling a torrent of fire - which I just stood in. It tingled and burned, but my immortality was stronger than that fire. I came out of it with only a scratch or two, though my shirt was in tatters from just the one attack. I threw it to the side, continuing to step towards Toriel, not bothering to dodge her fire attacks anymore. "Do I look injured, Toriel? Do I look like I'm going to die?" I asked. "Is this the best you got?"

"... No..." She launched blast after blast of fire, walking backwards, stumbling awkwardly. "And why can't I sense your soul? Not a human... or a monster soul. What are you?"

"Good question," I said, grinning. "I'm not really a normal guy, you know. I'm immortal, I'll never age, and death is kinda temporary for me. I'm not the smartest guy around, and I'm not even close to the toughest, and I don't even have my sword with me right now, but I ain't helpless. Hell, fighting is practically the only thing I feel like I'm good at."

I pulled out my hula hoop, setting it spinning as I closed to within a few feet of Toriel. "So if there's anything at all I can do... it's survive." I reached out with my left hand, and absorbed the next blast of flames she shot at me.

"Being immortal... won't save you..." she said, lowering her hands. I could see tears falling from her eyes, dispersing into the downy fur on her face. "Pathetic, is it not? I can not save even a single child. I will not stop you if you wish to leave. But... if you leave, please do not come back. I hope you understand."

She knelt and hugged me, and her embrace was warm and fluffy. Like a living blanket. "I'll be fine, Toriel," I said. "I can call you to tell you I'm okay if you like."

"No," she said. "That won't be necessary." She walked past me, taking one look back before leaving the way she came.

I stepped forward through the slightly singed door. 


	4. Snow

"Ooh, another ominous corridor," I said as I walked past that door. "These have to exist for some reason."

I came out of the corridor and walked into a clearing with a single flower. "Howdy!" it greeted me, and I grinned.

"Hey, Flowey," I said. "What's up?"

"You wanna know why all the ominous corridors are here? The corridors were to defend these lands, long ago," the flower said. "The monsters here feared human invasion after they were sealed, so they made architecture designed to slow an army and allow for a fight. Have you noticed why that is so stupid yet?"

"Eh? Uh..."

"Then forget it," Flowey said. "Heh."

* * *

"The corridors were to defend these lands, long ago," the flower said. "The monsters here feared human invasion after they were sealed, so they made architecture designed to slow an army and allow for a fight. That's why they're here."

"Ah. Huh, I guess that's pretty smart!" I said.

"Sure. From here, you're going to start running into Asgore's soldiers, the Royal Guard. Watch out for dogs and skeletons. They live to kill humans - don't be afraid to do what you have to." The flower made a creepy smirk.

"Uh, okay. Thanks for the warning, Flowey." I started to walk past.

"Hey, one more thing," the flower asked. "I saw you use a cool trick against that lady. Sucking up her fire attack?"

"Oh yeah. That's my Magia Erebea. I can absorb magic when I have my hula hoop around me. From there, I can shoot it back out or merge with it to power myself up." I raised my right hand into the air, and a stream of fire blasted harmlessly out of it into the cavern.

"Awesome trick," the flower said, "so... you think you can absorb... anything... made of magic?"

"Yeah, probably," I said. "Never gave much thought to it. Hmm..."

* * *

"Oh yeah. That's my Magia Erebea. I can absorb magic when I have my hula hoop around me. From there, I can shoot it back out or merge with it to power myself up." I raised my right hand into the air, and a stream of fire blasted harmlessly out of it into the cavern.

"Awesome trick," the flower said with a big grin. "You're gonna need to be on your own for a while after this, but don't worry, I think you can handle yourself just fine."

"Okay. Bye, Flowey. Thanks again." I put my hula hoop away and walked on as he vanished back into the ground.

Beyond the cavern was a snowy wood. "Huh," I marveled. "And I'm under a mountain too. Guess there's magic stuff going on down here. I'm on the right track for sure."

I walked along the untrod path, disturbing the snow with each step, relaxed and lost in the wonder of the beautiful winter wood underground.

I was brought out of my reverie when I sensed a magical force, a presence sharp and powerful enough to be an attack, not at Yukihime's or Fate's level but close enough to mine, and I responded with instinctive reflexes. I spun around and dug my toes in, leaping back along the path faster than a normal eye could follow towards the source. But whatever it was moved at that same speed, blurring away from me into the sky sharply. I pursued, shunpo'ing through the forest, leaping off the ground and the trees and the empty air, my focus pinpoint as I slowly gained on the blur.

That continued on for... probably not even ten seconds, until the blur streaked off... and vanished entirely. I fell out of my shunpo in midair, looking around in vain for any trace of it before leaping back off the air to get back to the path. "What the hell was that?" I wondered. "I guess it wasn't hostile after all, though. Maybe that fairy had a very fast dad?"

A bit winded from the short but intense chase, I went back to walking down the path, passing a little bridge with a structure over it that looked a bit like the entrance to a Shinto shrine - I gave a little bow just in case - and soon I came across a stand with a napping skeleton sitting in it.

I tried to walk quietly past, but the skeleton's loud snoring stopped, and he raised his head to look right at me. "Oh hey. A human. I think." He yawned and stood up, coming around to face me and offering a hand to shake. He was short and squat, and wore a jacket. "Well, you aren't a monster. I'm Sans the skeleton, put 'er there."

I swung my hand into the shake, causing a long, drawn out fart sound as our handshake squeezed a whoopee cushion in his skeletal palm. I pulled my hand away, unable to contain a big grin, before I broke out into laughter. "That's so funny!" I said between full breaths of laughing.

"Yeah, that's always a good one," Sans said. "So yeah, I'm here on watch for humans, but... eh. Now, my brother, he's pretty hardcore about human hunting. In fact, hey, mind if I ask you a favor? Could you pretend to be human for my brother? He's harmless, he won't notice you don't have a soul, it'll be a lot of fun for everyone."

"Sure," I said. "Sounds fun."

"Good." he said. "Because my brother is literally standing behind you right now. Sup, Papyrus!"

I turned around and there was totally a skeleton standing there. I don't even know how I missed him, he was tall and broad-shouldered and he did not look like a quiet kind of guy. "You know what 'sup', brother! It's been eight days and you still... Sans, who is that?"

"It's, uh, a human." Sans said.

I took a step forward. "Yup! Totally a human here. Here to do... human things. Whatever you think humans do." I nodded, not entirely able to suppress a goofy grin.

"Really? Wowie! I better go check the puzzles!" he said, walking off.

"Huh. Well, that worked out really well. Anyway, just... humor him, okay? Go easy on him. He won't seriously try to hurt you or anything."

"Sure. I should get going, though, if I'm gonna get through the underground. Hey, good meeting you, Sans. You're a cool guy."

"Yeah. Around here, I'm as cold as ice," he said with a grin.

"Yup! I'll see you later!" I jogged away, making some distance before I realized that he made another joke, and I doubled over in a fit of laughter from it.


	5. Puzzles and Japes

My laughing attracted a comedian. He made a couple of hilarious snow puns, and I went on my way.

After going on for a while, I walked past an empty, rickety guard shack, and then a much better-built, populated guard shack. The dog inside that one almost decapitated me a few times before I figured out that his blue magical sword just went through me harmlessly if I wasn't moving. I eventually absorbed his blue sword and he flipped out and hid inside the shack.

I took a bit of time to play around with the sword-spell. It was like an object, that was also apparently made of magic. Absorbing and manifesting it sharply increased my weight, and shooting it out just reformed the blue sword again. I eventually threw aside the sword nearby - it tingled uncomfortably whenever I walked with it, and I didn't really feel like I needed it, I wouldn't want to steal something unless I was desperate - and said to myself, "Heh, I guess if someone launches a blue spell at me, I can use it to hit harder. Kinda like my sidestick back home. Ugh..." I felt a sharp pang of loneliness as I thought of all the folks I had back home waiting for me. "I wish I had sidestick to talk to. I sound nuts just jabbering on to myself. At least if I had my trusty sable sidestick with me I could have someone to agree that I sound crazy."

"Don't worry, human!" a shrill voice called out down the path. "I, the great Papyrus, will be happy to agree that you sound crazy! But first... you must overcome the puzzles I and my brother have designed to stop you! First is the invisible electricity maze! Touch the walls of this maze and this orb will administer a hearty zap!"

I stopped before a square area where the snow wasn't quite as thick - the presumed maze. It would've been easy enough to just jump over it, it wasn't even that big, but I was asked to humor him. "Okay," I said, stepping forward - when the orb in Papyrus' hand immediately zapped him.

"Sans! What did you do!" Papyrus demanded.

"I, uh, think the human has to hold the orb," he said.

"Oh, okay." Papyrus walked a path right through the maze, "Hold this please," he said as he handed me the orb, then walked back through the maze.

I looked down at the maze. It had a clear path through in footprints now. I waited a long moment as I considered them.

"Well, human? Too... shocked... by this clever puzzle to continue?" Papyrus said. "Nyeh heh heh!"

"No, I've got this," I said. I took a step into the maze... and then I closed my eyes. I didn't want to just see the right answer, after all! I stuck out my left hand until the orb shocked me - then I started moving forward, using my left hand - and a constant stream of zaps - to feel out the presence of a wall, which I strictly followed.

"Uh, human..." Papyrus said as I wandered along the maze, "you can use your eyes. You don't need to close them. The maze is already invisible."

"Well, yeah," I replied. "If the maze is invisible, then what do I need to see anything for!" Also I didn't want to use the obvious footprints to cheat, and closing my eyes removed the temptation. I chose the 'left hand rule' to solve the maze because I thought I would have solved the maze too quickly following the right wall.

"Well... that's really clever!" Papyrus exclaimed. "With logic like that, you may be almost as great a puzzling genius as I! What a worthy opponent!"

As goofy as the situation was, and as oblivious as his complement was... it still felt super nice. It was just really heartfelt, really genuine. I totally felt better because of it, as I walked through that maze, zapping myself every second or two, opening my eyes every minute or so to see if I was out yet.

Whole thing only took me a few minutes. It wasn't a big maze.

"Incredible!" Papyrus exclaimed. "But don't think we're done yet - the next puzzle was made by my brother Sans! Nyeh heh heh!" he sprinted away.

"Thanks a bunch, my brother looks like he's having a lot of fun. Ain't he cool?" Sans said.

I nodded. "Yeah. He's pretty cool! A little corny, but cool. Headin' along now."

"Talk to you soon," Sans said.

I walked along, saying hello to an ice cream vendor... sweet idea, but everyone wants gold for things and I only have yen... I passed what looked like a golf course and then came across Papyrus and Sans again.

"Human!" Papyrus exclaimed. "I hope you're ready for... Sans! Where is the puzzle!"

Sans said, "It's there, on the ground."

I walked forward, until I found a word search on the ground. I stared at it for a moment, then said, "Uh... guys. I don't have a pen."

"Sans! Why did you forget to give the human a pen to solve the puzzle!" Papyrus forcefully exclaimed.

"A pen? Man, why not use a pencil? Lets you erase your mistakes," Sans replied.

"A pen shows decisiveness!" Papyrus countered. "Its lines are bold! This makes pens the best!"

"I guess, maybe for signatures," Sans lazed, "But..."

"Human! Resolve this dispute! Which is superior for puzzling - a pen or a pencil!"

"Huh." I had never thought about it seriously before. "Pencils are cool because you can erase, but you can't really erase all the way. And what you write with a pen lasts longer, but it looks really dumb and obvious when you screw up. Can I choose an erasable pen?"

"NO!" Papyrus boggled.

"Then pencil, I guess, because I'm really not good enough at puzzles to be confident with a pen. I just wasn't thinking."

"If that's how you want to play it..." Papyrus said, "...then you will actually be very relieved to know that the next puzzles have convenient reset buttons in case you screw up! So they are very much like having a pencil! Nyeh!" And with that he turned and walked on.

"Ah, my brother. He's... got an interesting artistic sense. Once he wrote a book where all the text was loren ipsum, and all the pages were ASCII art. Of photos he'd taken of the meals he cooked."

"Really?" I said as I turned to move along. "Is there just not much to do down here or something?"

"Heh. That's something you could definitely write with a pen, kid. Talk to you later." 


	6. Gauntlets Thrown

I continued along to find a microwave and a frozen plate of spaghetti. My stomach growled - I was pretty hungry when I got here, and that one slice of pie wasn't all too filling.

It was clearly another puzzle, though - the spaghetti was frozen to the plate and the microwave wasn't plugged in. I used the fork to chip away at the ice and pry up the plate, then once I put it in the microwave I pulled out my hula hoop and tried carefully powering it with my magic - and it worked, sort of. The spaghetti tasted absolutely terrible by the time I actually got it cooked, but at least it was a meal.

I continued on after that to find some more spikes - but I didn't see Papyrus to taunt me for this puzzle, so I just vaulted over them. I ran into a couple axe-wielding dogs afterwards. After dodging their attacks for a while - and not dodging sometimes, it didn't matter too much - I disarmed their axes and tossed them to the side, saying, "Look, you guys aren't going to be able to defeat me. I..."

And I stopped because they weren't fighting me anymore - both had run after their axes where I threw them. Both grabbed them and ran back to me, dropping them in front of me. "Uh... oh! Let's play fetch!" I grabbed and threw their axes a bunch of times, and a couple of times I even did a thing where I pretended to throw the axe and they started to run after it, and it wasn't for a little while until they realized that I was still holding the axe.

But anyway! I did that until they tired down, and when they cuddled up together to rest it was adorable. I tried to take a picture with the cell phone Toriel gave me - it wasn't a cameraphone, too old - before I headed on my way.

Afterwards was another puzzle - which I did because Papyrus was standing right by the spikes - and once I solved it I approached him and he exclaimed, "What!? How did you avoid my trap? And, more importantly... is there any left for me?"

"I ate it." I said, shrugging. "I've been pretty hungry since I got here."

"Really? Wowie... No one's ever enjoyed my cooking before..." he said. I politely did not note that I didn't enjoy it either, and he continued, "Well then! Fret not, human! I, master chef Papyrus... will make you all the pasta you could ever want!" He walked on, giving his strange 'nyeh heh' laugh as before.

"Maybe that's how he's going to kill me," I said quietly as I followed.

The next puzzle was a bit harder, and Papyrus went on a while about how he'd solve it for me if I couldn't figure it out - which was nice, but it's not like I couldn't cheat by just jumping. In the end, I didn't need to do that either, it just took me a couple tries to figure it out.

Papyrus ran ahead after I solved the puzzle, but I caught back up to him at what was obviously another puzzle. "Human!" he exclaimed, "You're gonna love this puzzle! It was made by the great Dr. Alphys!" He proceeded to explain the puzzle - it was about colored tiles - in great detail.

"I got it." I said after the explanation.

"Okay! Get ready!" he said, and pulled the switch. The field before me shimmered, and a multicolored tile arrangement sprung up before me. I first stepped onto a yellow tile, and gritted my teeth in focus as electricity shot through me. I turned left - the other tiles were red - and stepped onto a green tile, which made a soft chime. I stepped forward to a pink tile, then turned right... into a water tile that was also electrified from an adjacent yellow tile. "Argh!" I grunted, pulling my body through it and clambering forward onto a pink tile. I had to step through another yellow tile, and then followed a path of pink and orange tiles to step out in front of Sans and Papyrus. "No problem!" I exclaimed triumphantly, while well-scented.

"Excellent!" Papyrus said. "But I'm not out of japes yet!" he turned and left.

"That was pretty challenging," I said.

"Yeah," Sans said, "It's apparently random every time, so it's really good at killing humans. Good thing you ain't one."

"Wait, what?" I said, "Why would making a puzzle random make it good at killing humans?"

Sans chuckled. "No reason. I'll see you down the path, man." He stretched out as if to take a nap on the snow.

As I went along, solving another puzzle - Papyrus wasn't there, so I just jumped from switch to switch - I wondered why the green tile in that other puzzle didn't do anything. Wasn't it supposed to summon a monster for me to fight?

I went straight at the next fork, saw a bunch of piles of snow and played some with a dog, then walked onto a bridge with Sans and Papyrus standing at the end. "Human! This is your final and most dangerous challenge!" Papyrus... papyrused. "Behold! The Gauntlet Of Deadly Terror!"

He pressed a button, and into view came a flamethrower, a spiked wrecking ball, spears, a cannon... and a dog swinging on a rope. "When I say the word, it will fully activate! Cannons will fire! Spikes will swing! Blades will slice! Each part will swing violently up and down!"

I assumed a fighting stance, ready for him to start, but he wasn't done talking yet.

"Only the tiniest chance of victory will remain! Are you ready!?"

"Hell Yeah!" I shouted, interrupting the skeleton. Papyrus' enthusiasm was contagious. "Let's do this!"

"Oh. Uh... okay!" and he hit a button.

I took a step forward and the spiked ball swung at me. I braced myself, taking hold of the ground, and I caught it with one outstretched hand. Feeling heat on my back, I spun around with the ball - tearing it off its chain - and hurled it into the fire from the flamethrower. It crushed the flamethrower. I was grinning as I took a few more steps forward.

Next the spears swung at me from both sides. I extended my forearms out to defend, focusing my ki to stop the bladed weapons, and they hit with enough force that both weapons shattered at the haft, falling to the ground... actually to the rock on both sides of the bridge. Just a few inches under the bridge.

"Is... is this just painted?" I asked before a cannonball slammed into my stomach, bowling me over and making me taste a bit of my own blood. I caught my feet again, standing up with the cannonball, and I hurled the cannonball back into the cannon - which demolished it.

I continued on along the bridge and a dog plopped lazily onto my head. "Who's a good boy?" I asked, patting it before the gauntlet yanked the dog back up again.

"Guys, isn't this animal cruelty?" I commented as the dog was yanked violently up and down by the gauntlet - more forcefully than the spears or anything else, in fact. "I mean... it doesn't look like the dog minds, but... still."

"Nah, this is how I walk him," Sans says. "He loves it."

"Indeed, human! While you have overcome this trial, I'm afraid you could not stop our true goal - tiring out Sans' dog! He is excessively energetic when he is not properly walked! Nyeh heh heh!" Papyrus cackled. "Another successful Papyrus plan, executed!" He spun around and walked away.

I shrugged and followed. Sans remarked, "Hey, uh, I'd owe you one if you played real nice with my brother, okay? He's harmless."

"You already said that."

"Yeah." He looked over at the wreckage of Papyrus' trap, "Guess I'm a bit disoriented about how quick you went through all the traps. You kind of came in like a wrecking ball." He said with his perpetual grin.

I moved along once I was done laughing. That took a little while. Sans is hilarious. 


	7. Snowdin Snowdown

Next was a quaint town - Snowdin. "This reminds me of back home in the countryside," I said to myself as I looked up at a shop. "Boring. Man... I almost miss boring stuff. Once I get home and make sure everyone's safe and knock out those olympics... I should take a vacation... except I have no money back home either..."

I sighed. Trying to put my debt out of my mind, I went into the shop. Small town shops don't take credit, but you don't need money to chat at a village store. And while I might not have any gold... at least I don't have any negative gold.

So I walked in and the shopkeeper was a bunny girl. She had a belly, or maybe she was pregnant I don't know, but I didn't want to ask and maybe come off as racist.

"Hello!" I said.

"Hello, traveler," she said amicably. "Welcome to Snowdin! Can't remember the last time I saw a fresh face around here. Where did you come from? The capital?"

"Outside," I said. "I guess the ruins before here."

"Oh... Oh." She said. "You're... human, then?"

"Eh... mostly?" I said with a shrug. "It's complicated."

"Well." She said. "I'm mighty happy you're here, human. You're going to be the one to get us out of here!"

"Get you out of here? You're trapped?"

"Yup. I don't know how they teach it in the human world, but here in the monster world it's basic history: humans waged a war against us and drove us all underground, sealing us behind a magical barrier."

"Well, I don't know if I can break it, but I'll sure as hell try!" I say, "You guys all seem like nice people, I don't know why anyone would have sealed you down here."

"I'm sure you'll get us out," she replied, not quite looking at me. "If you want to know more, there's a library in town. You seem nice, so... you have fun around here, all right?"

"Okay, check the library. Got it, thanks!" I turned to leave. "Bye!"

"Bye now!"

Once I got outside, I walked along. There was an inn, but I wasn't tired or anything, and a bar and grill, and while I was definitely still pretty hungry, and could have eaten, I still had no money so the smell of the place would have just taunted me. Also talked to some of the locals, learned about monster politics and I learned from a kid that the fashion in the underground was to dress kids in striped shirts - 'cause it's hard to tell a monster's age since there are so many kinds.

"So," I said to the monster kid, "I'm not even wearing a shirt... nobody's gonna think I'm a kid?"

"Why would people think you're a kid?" He said.

I grinned. "Yeah. Why would they?"

I walked on to the library next. "Librarby".

I walked inside and the first thing I heard was, "Welcome to the library! Yes, we know, the sign is misspelled."

"Okay." I said. "Guess you guys really have things together here huh?"

I looked through the library, and most of the books looked like they were old, salvaged human books. There were a few papers that looked like they were written by and about monsters, though. "Monsters are made of magic?" I wondered as I read one, "Would my Magia Erebea work on them? And a monster's fighting ability is attuned to their emotional state, as well as the emotions of the people they're fighting? Hmm. That's so weird compared to what I know. And wait... love, hope and compassion? That... really seems like anti-human propaganda. Are there really no monsters who are just jerks? Hmm."

I walked along through the village, and as I left a thick, cold fog rose about. "Man," I said quietly, "Before my training in the rift I'd be freezing..." I said quietly.

"Human!" a familiar voice called out, "You sound crazy again!"

"Hey, hold up a second, Papyrus. My name's Touta."

"Human..." he said, "You aren't making this easier. I need to capture you, Touta, and send you away to the castle. It's my job, that I don't have yet... but I will after I defeat you and capture you! Because you are human! And being defeated and captured and sent away is your job that you don't have yet!"

"That's deep, man, but I already have a job. Pays a whole 200 yen an hour, plus bonuses. I'd get in trouble for moonlighting." With sudden realization, I groaned. "Oh man! I'm probably not clocking any hours! Am I hourly or salaried? Why didn't I ever ask! Other than the fact that my pay is so low that it doesn't really matter... Still, I've been away from work for eight months, not even counting being thrown into a different universe! I need to check if I'm owed salary for that, that would actually be a lot. Plus whatever time I've been gone when I get back."

"It seems we both have noble, grand goals, Touta... I must capture you, and you must ask your boss about back pay! Clearly these goals are incompatible! But after I capture you, I can give you eight months of my pay! Prepare yourself!"

As he started to attack me, I said, "But you don't have a job."

"Correct! Eight months of my pay is nothing! In fact, I've already given it to you! Never let it be said the Great Papyrus was not generous!" he proclaimed as bones slowly drifted past me.

"Uh... anyway, Papyrus, how about we not fight? I'll be happy to return those eight months of pay. I'll talk with the Royal Guard people and I'll tell them how good you did and maybe they'll let you in without capturing anybody?" I shrug.

"No!" Papyrus exclaimed. "Capturing humans is what the Royal Guard does! I would be derelict in my duties! I'll just have to use my fabled 'blue attack!'"

So he hurled a bunch of bones at me, but they were blue so I just didn't move and they passed harmlessly through me - then I felt a wave of magic shoot over me and I staggered, suddenly weighed down as a wave of bones thwapped me in the feet. I can't say it hurt very much, but it did catch me off guard. Also, I was blue, just like I'd absorbed a blue attack. "You're blue now. That's my attack! Nyeh heh heh heh!"

"Well played, Papyrus," I said, deciding to play along again - it couldn't hurt. Er. Couldn't kill me or anything. "Show me what else you got!"

He started to hurl wave after wave of bones, and I started dodging them, and the entire time he was talking about how successful he would be after he captured me. "You're hyping yourself up to get your combat power up, aren't you?" I said, "I read about that in the library."

"Nyeh... you're a lot like a friend of mine, Undyne!" He said. "She totally points out things like this when she gives me Royal Guard training! She's really good at fighting."

"Aww, thanks! I think. That's a complement right?"

"Yes! Another insightful observation! I'm starting to think I'll need my... special attack to defeat you!"

"Yeah, you're probably going to want to try for it, you aren't getting anywhere with these attacks."

"You're definitely like Undyne! I developed this attack just to fight against her, and she's the strongest monster I know, so be prepared!"

I braced myself - considering that Papyrus' attacks so far have been toe-stubbing levels of threat, I probably didn't have to, but his enthusiasm is contagious - and he declared. "Here it comes! My special attack!"

He hurled a giant orange bone at me. I raised my guard and it smashed through me, making me take a step back. It felt solid but not quite solid, and it was stronger than the previous attacks. "Is that it?" I asked.

"No! Wait for it!" A moment of waiting for it later and I stopped glowing blue, and started glowing orange. It was almost the opposite - instead of feeling heavier, I felt lighter and faster... but also stronger at the same time.

"Uh. Papyrus." I said, deadpan. "Is your special attack... supposed... to make your enemy more powerful?"

"Yes!"

"Papyrus, I'm not sure you get that the point of fighting is to make the enemy... weaker?"

"Nyeh heh heh heh heh! You may think that, but you don't understand the cleverness of this attack! You already know that monster strength is based on how strong their resolve to fight is after all!" Papyrus moved, taking a combat stance for the first time since he started 'fighting' me.

"Hmm?"

He hurled another orange bone at me, and when it struck it felt less like stubbing my toe and more like I was being hit with another cannonball. The force of the blow slid me back, and Papyrus said, "Orange attacks don't hit you if you're moving. Just to let you know!"

"Huh. Does your special attack make you stronger too?"

"No! But it does mean I don't have to be nearly as afraid I might hurt someone! I wouldn't want to hurt someone while fighting, after all!"

I blinked. "Oh my God that's why I didn't sense you approaching." He didn't want to hurt me. He had no intent to kill. None. I started laughing. "I get it now! Your special attack is awesome! You're awesome! Let's do this!"

"Now you shall face the true power of Papyrus, soon to be future Royal Guardsman and really popular guy!" And he hurled a blue and orange wall of bones at me. I tried to stay still, but the wall was more like a block, with orange bones mixed in, and when I tried to move the blue started again and... he hit me a lot with it.

I climbed out of the bone... cube? ...with my immortality working hard to repair the damage I took. It was basically the first time anything down here had actually injured me. "Wow, you're strong!" I said. "Way stronger than that goat lady."

"Did you like that attack? It's a puzzle! And I'm going to attack you with each puzzle until you can solve them! I hope you learned from all the practice you did on the way here! Nyeh heh heh!"

"Oh damn." He hurled the bone cube at me again, it walloped me again. "Hrrgh... okay, I can figure this out... stay for blue and move for orange. But there's orange in the blue, so I can't just stay... oh."

The next time he hurled the cube at me, I dove through the orange part on the outside, dashing through a path formed by the orange bones without stopping until I lept out the other side unscathed. "Nice maze, Papyrus," I grinned. "What else you got?"

He grinned back as massive skulls rose up from behind him. He threw a set of machines onto the ground in front of me. "Next, see how you'll do against my switch puzzle! If the blasters hit you, the puzzle resets! Nyeh heh heh!" he declared as the blasters started to shoot blue and orange beams.

I jumped into a blue beam to sit and observe for a moment, but it changed - the blasters were alternating. I dived to the side into a beam that was turning blue, and danced between them until I had the hang of the rhythm. Then when I hit one of the switches, the blasters changed their pattern. I didn't move fast enough and was walloped by an orange blast, and the switch I hit flipped right back.

"Nice try, Touta!" Papyrus cried, "Take your time and I'm sure you'll be able to do it!"

The next time I tried the puzzle I figured out the switches had to be pressed in a certain order. Two tries later I figured out Papyrus started launching alternating walls of blue and orange bones after hitting the third switch. Five tries later I slammed my hand down on the last switch, deactivating the skull-blasters. "This fight is so awesome!" I laughed.

"Yes it is! Because it is a fight against me and I, the great Papyrus, am awesome at puzzle-fights! Even though this is the first time I have had a puzzle-fight! But now for the most difficult of my puzzle-attacks: Junior Jumble!" He started hurling letters made of bones at me.

They were pretty easy to dodge. "So... where's the puzzle part?" I asked as the letters thumped into the snow all around me.

"If you spell the right words with them they vanish. If you don't spell out the proper words with them, they explode!" Papyrus replied as he threw the last few letters.

"Uh." I was surrounded by letters that had not vanished. And while I was looking at them, they all exploded into shards of bone. "Yargh!"

"You'll have to figure out what the words are to the jumble!" Papyrus called as he started up the next round of letters.

It took me a lot of tries to realize that the jumble was "Papyrus" "Sans" "Awesome" "Cool" and, touchingly, "Touta".

Papyrus was breathing hard... however that works... by the time I was done. "Well! You have successfully helped me try out all my attacks! And! Clearly because of all the times I have hit you with those attacks, you must be ready to surrender! As such, I am prepared to spare you."

"Uh..." I wasn't quite sure how to respond. Yes, he was the biggest threat I'd fought in the underground... but he wasn't that powerful. He could injure me sure, but there's no way he could seriously beat me, not with my immortality constantly regenerating me. "...Okay. I don't want to hurt you, man."

He was silent for a long moment afterwards. "...Nyoo hoo hoo," he cried. "Undyne will be disappointed that I haven't captured you... I'll never join the Royal Guard, and my friend quantity will remain stagnant."

"Hey, who the hell do you think I am? I'm your friend, damn it!" I exclaimed. "And I'm a quantity! A quantity of one friend!"

"Really? Wowie! A real friend! I have friends! And all I needed to make them was to give people awful puzzles and then fight them?"

"Hey, a couple of them were pretty good puzzles," I said, "And it's been forever since I've gotten a good opportunity to get some exercise like that!"

"Well, human, I give you permission to pass through. And if you want to get back to the surface, just continue forward until you reach the end of the cavern. Then cross the barrier. That's the magical seal trapping us all underground. Anything can enter through it, but nothing can exit, except someone with a powerful soul. And your soul is so powerful I can't even see it! So you should be able to get through no problem! That's why the king wants to acquire a human. He wants to open the barrier with soul power. Then us monsters can return to the surface!"

"Damn..." I facepalmed. I'd completely misunderstood what the magical portal at the end of the underground was. It was just back the way I came! Next time I talked with a magical flower I was going to take my time with the conversation.

"Oh, I almost forgot to tell you... you'll have to go through the king's castle. He's a big fuzzy pushover, though! Everybody loves that guy, you won't have any trouble! Anyway, feel free to come by and hang out!" He lept past me back towards Snowdin.

I plopped onto the snow, wondering what I was going to do next. "Damn it." 


	8. Hangouts

"Howdy!" A high-pitched voice said from behind me. I turned and, unsurprisingly, it was Flowey, the friendly yellow flower. "You made it through Snowdin all right, great! Touta, uh, is something wrong?"

"Ugh. The portal at the end of the underground just leads back outside, doesn't it?"

"No, it leads to another universe," the flower said.

"Really?" I asked, "Beacuse Papyrus said that..."

* * *

"Ugh. The portal at the end of the underground just leads back outside, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. Isn't that what you want, a way out of here? It's what everyone wants!" the flower said.

I sighed. "I'm... I'm a lot more trapped than that, Flowey. I'm from another world entirely... and I really have no idea how to get home."

"Man, that sucks. But hey, you can have a lot of fun while you're here, right?" He said with a smile.

"I guess, but I really need to get going as quick as possible. I gotta get back to my real home, people are counting on me."

* * *

"Man, that sucks. But hey, you could... do a lot of good here, right? These folks are pretty sad, you know."

"Yeah. I could! I think I'm going to try breaking that barrier, Flowey."

"That's a wonderful idea!" the flower exclaimed. "I want to help, too!"

"Thanks, man. Just keep leading the way for me, I guess. Papyrus was pretty strong... do they get any stronger than him down here?"

"Well, there's the head of the Royal Guard, Undyne," the flower mused, "And then the king. But that's pretty much it... unless you piss off Papyrus' brother. He's lazy, but... don't piss him off, okay?"

"Uh? Okay," I say with a shrug.

"And, hey..." the flower said. "Something else I overheard. Something about you not having a soul? I thought it was just me at first, but I guess nobody can feel it. What's up with that?"

I gave a big sigh to that one. "I... think I know what's up with that, actually. You see... I'm not really human. I'm not a monster like you guys either. I... I was made in a lab. Some folks took a bunch of parts and just... put me together in a test tube, or something like that. Only kind of monster I am is Frankenstein's monster, heh."

"Oh, uh... that... that must really suck. A lot." The flower said, not looking at me. "Not being able to feel love, or compassion... being empty inside."

I blinked. "Huh? I don't really feel like that though..." I said. "I've got tons of friends back home I want to see again, friends I want to protect. And... well, I can't call her my 'girl', but... I know I have someone back home waiting for me."

When I looked over, it looked like the flower was about to cry.

"Wh... but... you're not human. You... you don't have a soul. You're supposed to be..." He ducked into the ground.

* * *

"Man, that sucks. But hey, you could do a lot of good here, right? These folks are pretty sad, you know."

"Yeah. I could! I think I'm going to try breaking that barrier, Flowey."

"That's great. You're a really good person. Touta. And I've been thinking - there might still be a way for us monsters to help you get home!"

I spun around to him. "Really? How?"

"Well!" he said, "It would be spoiling the surprise, but... in this world, monsters can use the power of souls. Just a single soul can provide a monster with incredible power..."

I sighed. "Damn it. Monsters keep telling me I don't have a soul, so I guess that's no use."

"You idiot!" The flower bonked me on the head with a seed. "It doesn't have to be your soul! The king has six souls at the castle already!"

"Oh. Uh, okay. How powerful is six souls?"

The flower grinned. "Making an invincible barrier to trap an entire people needed seven."

"So six can probably bring me home?"

"If it can't... I'll help you figure something out." He grinned even wider.

"Wow, Flowey. You're an awesome guy, you know that?"

"Yeah, yeah. I've heard that before. I've even had a fan club."

"But wait, why would the king share all that soul-power stuff?" I asked.

"Well, you're gonna break the barrier, right? And do all sorts of other good stuff. He'll feel thankful enough to bring out the souls for you, I bet."

"And... how do you use it?"

"I could do that, Touta. Don't worry."

"Ah. Huh. And I guess getting incredible power is pretty nice for you too, huh?" I laughed. "That works out for everybody!"

* * *

"And... how do you use it?"

"Any monster could do it for you, Touta, just find someone and ask them. You just now made a friend who could do it, that skeleton guy."

"Yeah. Or, hey!" I said. "You're a monster right? You could do it!"

"Yeah," The flower said, verbally shrugging. "I guess I could."

"Awesome! Thanks again, Flowey." I sprung to my feet, feeling like I was able to go on again. "I'll continue onward, then."

"Hold on!" the flower said. "Do you just not think? You just crushed the dreams of the poor guy who was trying to capture you! At least go back and apologize, try to make it up to him or something."

"Hah! Man, you're a really considerate guy, Flowey. But then again, you've been helping me all this time, of course you'd be thinking about others!"

"Yeah, that's me," the flower rolled his eyes, "Mister considerate. Now get over there and hang out with that goofball."

"You wanna come with? Let's hang out, I bet you're loads of fun."

"Uh... no, I've got stuff to do. Important stuff."

"I bet it can wait, come along, have some fun!" I said, hopping over and leaning over the little flower.

"No!" the flower protested.

"Come on, you can move through the ground, right? So you can obviously come along and hang out!"

"No!"

"Come on, man. I'll get like a pot or something you can..." the flower pelted me with a barrage of seeds. "Hey!"

"Shut up and listen!" the flower screeched.

"Oh, okay."

"Look... I'm not very... sociable."

"You've been really friendly with me," I say encouragingly.

He sighed. "You're different. Look... it's complicated. I'll tell you about it later. For now, I've got places to be. I'll talk to you later, Touta."

"Okay, Flowey. Talk to you later, man. Thanks for being there for me."

"Y... you're welcome." He ducked into the snowy ground.

I stood up straight and stretched. "Welp, might as well go see if Papyrus needs cheering up. If he's as enthusiastic about being sad as he is about being happy, he'll make everyone in town depressed." I sauntered off to go talk to the guy.

He was in front of the biggest house in town. "So you came back to see me!" he exclaimed.

I nodded. "Yeah. What's up, man?"

"You must be really serious about this whole friendship thing..." he said. "All right, we'll just have to hang out at the very best place I know..." he turned to face the town, then turned right around to face the house again. "My house!"

I walked inside, and it was a pretty nice place. Really open, two-story, nice couch and big TV. There was a rock on a plate, a joke book on a table, a painting of a bone. It was a completely reasonable home for a skeleton monster. "Cool house," I commented.

"I know! It is very cool, and also quite warm because of the central heating! Cool-warm is the best temperature!" Papyrus proclaimed.

"You got a nice kitchen, too," I said, walking in. "Is this where you cook your spaghetti?" As I thought about food, my stomach rumbled loudly. "Oh man... I'm pretty hungry."

"Great!" Papyrus exclaimed, rushing over to the fridge and opening it. Inside was tub after tub of spaghetti. "Go ahead and grab one!"

So I grabbed one, threw it on the stove, heated it up - I took my time this time, did it right, I didn't want terribly re-heated spaghetti like last time - and I tossed it onto a plate and grabbed a fork. "You want some too, Papyrus?" I asked.

"Sure!" he said. So I heated up some more, and we sat at the couch to eat. Papyrus looked... expectant... as I scooped up some pasta. He looked like a little kid showing their parents their coloring book. I suddenly had a bad feeling about the whole thing. But it was too late. The pasta was already on my fork. I could only eat it. I brought it to my mouth. I put it inside my mouth. I began to chew.

Immediately I realized my mistake.


	9. Cooking With Papyrus

I didn't ruin the pasta from earlier by overheating it - I think I might have improved it. This pasta... the outside of the noodles were overcooked, and the inside of them were undercooked. It had too much spices, and not enough salt... and I think it might have had sugar added too? The sauce was... lumpy... and uneven, like someone smashed the ingredients instead of pureeing or even just chopping them. The meatballs... they were okay.

I quietly chewed, then swallowed, then I put down the fork.

"Well!?" Papyrus asked, clearly very, very excited. "What did you think of my artisinal spaghetti?"

I was silent for a long moment as I considered my options. I really wanted a metaphorical pencil for that moment, because Papyrus was so sweet and childish and I didn't want to shatter what felt like his brittle cooking spirit. So I had to speak carefully.

"I think maybe humans have different taste buds, or something, from monsters," I said. "I'm sure it tastes really good to you."

"What? No! It tastes horrible!" Papyrus protested. "But it's some of the best pasta I've made yet, and I am very proud of it! Something as petty as flavor and texture is not going to get in the way of the Great Papyrus eating and sharing his work!"

I took a deep breath. And I let it out. And I took another. "Okay. Papyrus... would you like to make some spaghetti with me?" I asked.

He gasped. "You aren't just a connoisseur of spaghetti... you're also a chef? And you can fight, and you're good at puzzles... why, Touta, you're almost as great as me! It would be an honor to make pasta alongside you, the Great Touta!"

I couldn't even stop myself from breaking into the goofiest grin. "Yes. Yes!" I sprang to my feet. "And today, the Great Touta will teach you about human spaghetti making!" I strode towards the kitchen. "First: we'll gather the ingredients, while I start boiling up some water!"

Papyrus rushed into the kitchen. "I always make the noodles from scratch," he says, pulling out a box of instant spaghetti. "Uh... Papyrus? If we're going to make the noodles from scratch, what's the box for?"

He stabbed the box with a bony finger. "I'm going to scratch it open, of course! Nyeh heh heh!"

I turned the heat up while I laughed. "That's fine. Even pre-prepped ingredients can make for a great meal. Where are your spices?"

"Here!" Papyrus brought out a bowl and put it near the stove. "I pre-mixed them!"

The bowl was literally full of spices. Not containers of spices. Just... spices. I looked over it, leaned over it and sniffed carefully. "Hmm... basil... peppercorn... garlic... mustard... cinnamon... curry powder. At least. There's no way I can separate these... wait. Papyrus! Does this bowl have a lid?"

He handed me the lid, and I put it on. It sealed in with a click. "Perfect."

"What are you going to do now?" Papyrus asked.

"While the water's boiling, I'm going to spin this bowl," I said. "If I alternate between shaking it a little to loosen up the spices, then spinning it hard, the spices that weigh differently from each other should separate. They don't even need to separate all the way, just enough for me to get some without the others."

"What? Why would spinning something separate things?" he exclaimed.

"Well, uh... it's like a centrifuge. I guess it mostly works with things that are liquid, but the principle should still apply..." I said as I started to furiously spin the bowl, as quickly as I could.

A moment of spinning later, Sans was in the kitchen, standing by the door. "Yo, Touta, that's some fine... cooking... you're doing there, but could you stop? You're causing a convection current in the house." He gestured behind him, to where a tornado had picked up a table with a rock on it.

I stopped, and the tornado dissolved, putting the table back down. The rock fell to the floor. "Oh no! The pet rock!" Papyrus exclaimed, going to pick it up and place it, and the table, carefully back.

I took the lid off of the spice bowl and noticed that almost nothing changed. "Ugh... that should have worked, I don't know what's wrong?"

Sans said, "You trying to separate the spices, or somethin'?"

"Yeah."

"Not gonna happen, kid." he said. "Centrifuges are based on density. Spices are all made of leaves and stuff, they're all light and fluffy, made of almost the same stuff, almost the same density. So they're all really close together. Plus, they aren't liquid, they're solid, and the more solid the stuff you're spinning the less you can sort it out with force. You'd need to spin waaaay faster to separate solid objects that close in density. Upside, though, you probably spun all the rocks to the edge of the mix."

"Rocks?" I said.

"Yes!" Papyrus said. "Undyne showed me how to use salt rocks to flavor food! But I decided on the low-sodium alternative of normal rocks instead, for health reasons!"

"Ah. Well. In the future, a better alternative is probably... no rocks. At all. Rocks make food sit much heavier in your stomach, you see. Bad for digestion. Use salt or nothing."

"Ah! You're so smart, Touta! Are you a chef?"

"No, but I've learned a lot from someone who was a really good cook." I said. "Anyway, it looks like the water's done boiling, ready to put in the noodles."

"Really?" Papyrus said. "The stove's not on nearly as high as when I do it, though. And the water isn't boiling nearly as much! How can you cook spaghetti with such an inferior level of water boilage!"

"And that explains the noodle consistency," I said. "The trick, Papyrus, is that you're using the boiling water to distract the noodles until the time is right to strike, to move the noodles to the plate. Also, do you have any of those salt rocks? I can show you how to use one properly."

"Yes, I do," he said, bringing out a handful of small white, craggy rocks. I licked one - it was straight up pure rock salt. Usable. "Okay, the trick is to put this into the water, but not as a rock - you should grind it up, with like a grinder or a mortar and pestle or whatever." I held the rock over the boiling water and I started crushing it with my fist. "In any case, you have to basically grind the rock to dust."

Both skeleton brothers stared at me. It took me a moment to realize I'd read the word 'dust' in monster culture before. "Powder!" I shouted. "Grind the rock into powder. Then it's good to be put in food."

"Sans," Papyrus said, "Did my new human friend just kill a rock with his bare hand?"

"Yuuuuuuuup. That rock ain't gonna roll no more."

"Sans."

"He's a cold stone killer."

"Sans!"

"And next he's gonna make us bite the dust."

"Sa... all right, that last one was clever. Because we will eat the meal that now has the salt in it."

"Jeez, Paps. Any more of my jokes you wanna grind up and add to the pot?"

"It's probably salty enough already," I said, with a grin stuck on my face from all the jokes. "Let's prepare the sauce while the pasta cooks. Are we working from a can, or...?"

"No! We have fresh veggies!" Papyrus ran to get some, and he plopped a bunch of tomatoes down onto the counter. "And now to crush them!"

"Wait!" I dash over, catching Papyrus as he brandishes a bone at the vegetables. "How about we cut the veggies? Where are your knives?"

"Oh," Papyrus said, "We don't have any knives here."

"Not even butterknives?"

"Of course not. Why would you need to murder butter?" Papyrus asked.

"Uh..."

"Kid..." Sans gestured for me to come over.

I held up my hands. "Wait a minute on the vegetables," and I hopped over to Sans. "Sup?"

His voice dropped. "Look, kid. You know the humans drove us monsters underground way back, right? Being driven underground by a bunch of sword-wielding humans... it's gonna lead to certain traditions down here. There ain't no knives in monster houses in the underground, Touta. Even the forks are blunted."

"Oh!" I stepped back. "I, uh... didn't mean to offend."

"It's cool, kid. Just... you're gonna have to make do with the options you have, you know?"

I nodded. "Yeah... and I think I have an idea." I jumped back to the tomatoes - and I plucked one of the hairs from my head. "Hrk, man that hurts more than I thought it would." I grabbed both ends of the hair and pulled it taut. "Here we go."

"Touta," Papyrus said, "Angel hair is not appropriate for a spaghetti dish, it is an entirely different kind of long, stringy pasta! Also I am not even sure if you qualify as an angel!"

"That's not why." I said lining up the hair over the center of a tomato. I can focus ki into a single point of my body to harden it to the point where a sword can't cut it - and a thin object as hard as a sword could be used as an edge. And I know I can force ki into parts of my body that aren't alive anymore, because otherwise every time I used the technique the top layers of my skin would still be cut.

"So... I should be able to harden my hair for a split second and drive it down like a cutting wire." I mumbled, finishing my thought process out loud. I focused, I pulled down... and my hair broke.

"Damn it. Not enough control over my ki like this..." I grabbed my hoop and set it spinning around me, plucked another hair with a grunt of pain and tried again. This time I had the focus and the ki to do it, and my hair cleanly sliced the tomato in two. And then broke. "Damn it!"

I kept trying. Within a couple minutes - and a bunch of broken hairs - I'd gotten the trick down and was quickly, finely dicing the tomatoes. I finished with cleanly cut tomatoes and... actually pretty messy hair. "Why did you do that to the tomatoes instead of smashing them?" Papyrus asked.

"Well, if you just smash them, you don't actually break apart the skin of the tomato," I said, "So when you cook with it all the skin could clump together and that'd harm the consistency of the sauce."

"So... we should rip the skin apart too?!" Papyrus asked, his voice reflecting dawning realization.

"Uh... you know, that would kinda work too, I guess. Anyway, gotta stir the pasta some too," I said as I did exactly that. "This helps the pasta separate properly. Also you can pour the water into the sauce and boil a bit off to control how thick you want to make it. Anyway, Papyrus, if you want to prepare the meatballs, you can probably handle that by yourself."

Papyrus nodded. "Yeah! I can definitely make the meatballs!" he pulled out a bulk package of preprepared meatballs. "How many do you want?"

"Uh... come to think of it, Papyrus, we'll work that out once the pasta and sauce are done."

The rest of the prep went okay, and the batch of spaghetti was assembled. Which was good, because I was still hungry. We set up three plates of spaghetti slathered in sauce and covered in meatballs - Papyrus was eager to contribute his part, and I wasn't going to say no to more food at this point - and we sat at the couch.

As the lead chef, I tasted it first - I have to be able to warn folks just in case, after all - and the spaghetti was good. Still very strangely spiced, but more consistent, way better texture. I started digging in.

Papyrus was next. "This... this spaghetti is excellent!" he exclaimed. "It is the best spaghetti I have ever tasted! Truly, you are a chef without peer!" I just rolled my eyes, grinning around a mouthful of food.

Sans shrugged and tried it too. "Huh. Paps is right. This stuff's real good."

I stopped eating to say, "Aw, it's nothing my friends back home couldn't do. And it's nothing you can't do, Papyrus. You can make this spaghetti, you know how now!"

Papyrus was silent for a moment. "Why... I do know how to make that spaghetti! Now I am truly a spaghetti master chef! Truly, this is the best hangout I have ever engaged in!"

"Thanks, man. You're a cool guy." I say between mouthfuls.

Papyrus said, "I can't wait to introduce you to Undyne! I know you two will be great friends! And I'm going over to meet her in a few minutes because I called her and told her that I was about to capture a human!"

I looked up from my finished plate. "That was the head of the royal guard, right?"

"Yes!" Papyrus said. "She absolutely hates humans and desperately wants to capture them! Uh... I am no longer sure about this plan. In fact... perhaps you should go. Right now." He stood and rushed outside, never having finished his spaghetti.

"Well..." Sans said. "Guess I'll have to finish it for him. Thanks for the meal, man, it's good stuff. And thanks for being my bro's friend."

I stood and went to the kitchen to wash up my plate... and my hair. I don't even know where there was room for that sink to be so high, I had to jump to reach it. "Aw, it's nothing, man. You guys gave me a bunch of sweet puzzles, helped me train, and then fed me! If anything I owe you guys. I'm gonna try my best to break that barrier for you."

"You don't have to do that, man," Sans said. "Nobody will expect you to."

"I don't have to," I said as I left. "I want to." 


	10. Font of Wisdom

I walked on, and the snow ended. The cavern was starting to look almost normal, except for the large chunks of ice floating down the nearby river. Walked past a couple more monsters before I saw Sans' shack again.

"Wait." The shack had Sans in it. I walked over to the stand. "Hey, man. Didn't I just...?"

"What? Haven't you seen a guy with two jobs before?" He said.

I looked up at the snow covering his stand. It was very, very obviously snow, exactly like his stand in Snowdin, and it was the only snow in sight. I looked back at him. "What's really up here, Sans?"

"Well, you know, I love having multiple jobs, it means more legally-required breaks. In fact, I'm going on break right now. Gonna head to Grillby's, you wanna come?"

"I don't have any money."

"Oh? I guess it'll be on me then."

"Well," I laughed, "I just ate..." but my stomach still growled - even having eaten a plate of spaghetti a few minutes ago, I was still hungry. "Huh. Come to think of it... yeah, maybe I'll come with."

"Good to hear. C'mon this way, I know a shortcut," Sans said, gesturing to me. A few steps later, and very, very suddenly, I was in a bar. There were dogs playing poker, a few monsters chilling, a jukebox, and the bartender was made of fire. Just straight up. Made of fire. And he wore glasses, little reading glasses like one of my teachers at school used to wear. Okay, he wasn't a teacher, he was a bounty hunter pretending to be a teacher, but still, guy wore little reading glasses a lot like that. Only the teacher's glasses didn't have frames at the top for some reason, probably to look stylish.

"Fast shortcut, huh?" he asked.

I laughed. "Yeah! So you can teleport, huh?"

He said. "Nah. Hey guys!"

Folks around the bar chatted with Sans, and as cool as that trick was, I just let it drop, the bar was more interesting. There were dogs playing poker, after all, that's always awesome. Eventually we made it to the bar, and when I hopped onto the stool I immediately noticed the whoopee cushion I'd sat on.

"Whoops, watch where you sit down," Sans said while I was laughing. "Anyway, let's order. Whaddya want?"

"A burger," I said. "And fries!"

"That sounds pretty good. Grillby, we'll have a double order of burg, and some fries for my weirdly hungry friend here."

I nodded. "It is really weird. I've been eating, but it hasn't really filled me up much at all."

"That's interestin'. But let's talk about some real interestin' stuff - like my brother. What do you think of him?"

"He's super goofy," I said, "But he's just so energetic, it's infectious."

"Yeah, cool, isn't he?"

"He's so cool, he makes me feel cooler just by hanging out with him," I said, completely seriously.

"You'd be cool too if you wore that outfit every day. Though you're probably cold, wearing that half-outfit all through Snowdin. Humans need clothes in the snow, right?" Sans said, gesturing to my obvious shirtlessness.

"I wasn't really cold," I said. "Plus my shirt got burned up."

"Oh man, tough to hear. Oh hey, here comes the grub. Want some ketchup?"

"Yeah!" I said.

"Bone appetit." he responded, handing me the bottle.

I started to put the ketchup onto my burger, but the cap fell off, and the contents of the bottle all poured onto the burger.

"Whoops..." Sans said with a shrug.

"No, this works," I said, bringing over the fries. "I'm just gonna need to eat a lot of ketchup with the fries."

"Heh. You know kid, you got a funny approach to life."

I shrugged, my mouth full of ketchup-coated french fry.

"Anyway, Papyrus tries really hard, doesn't he? Like how he tries real hard to join the royal guard."

I nodded.

"One day, he went to the house of the head of the royal guard, and begged her to let him join. She shut the door on him, because it was midnight, but the next day she woke up and saw him still waiting there. She's been training him ever since."

I swallowed. "Awesome. So Undyne is the captain of the royal guard, isn't she? Papyrus mentioned he was going to use his special attack on her."

"Yeah, you got it. And, oh, yeah. I wanted to ask you something. Have you ever heard of a talking flower?" He said, casually.

I nodded. "Oh, you mean Flowey? He's a cool guy."

The skeleton stared at me. "Uh. You, uh, think so?"

"Yeah," I said. "He's been pretty helpful. He's been telling me about what's up ahead in the underground, giving me advice."

"Y' don't say. That... that makes sense."

"You're acting really surprised, Sans," I said. "Is there something up with Flowey?"

"Yeah. He's... he's not a people person."

I laughed. "That's what he said! I was trying to get him to come hang out with Papyrus and you."

"Huh. Sounds like it would've been fun. And... the guy talked with you any about breaking the barrier?"

"Yeah, he did," I said. "he said it was a wonderful idea."

"Yeah. It is. Sounds... real fun."

"Fun?"

"Yeah. A guy like you, coming in here to the underground... you're something special, Touta. Watching you come in here and help us... it'd be something out of a storybook. Something real entertaining to read."

I shrugged. "I guess. But don't stories need a bad guy to be interesting? I haven't met anyone in the underground that I'd say is a bad person."

"I dunno about that, kid. Maybe sometimes, a story'd be more interesting without one."

"I mostly read shonen. What kind of shonen would there be if there wasn't a bad guy? There'd be no fighting!"

"Well... I dunno about manga, but in the real world, there's usually enough misunderstanding, and fear, to start way too many fights already."

"Oh, like how the humans locked monsters away, right?"

"Yeah. They were afraid of something they didn't understand, something that seemed really powerful. So they had to control it."

"Yeah, that really sucks. But I'll help get rid of the barrier so you guys can get a second chance!"

"Heh. Cool. But I was thinking... what if there was something that even monsters didn't understand? That could make them afraid, and want to control it?"

I took a break from eating, and sighed. "Sans... I'm not dumb. The Underground is built to defend itself from humans, which are already scary and powerful compared to monsters, right? And I'm even more powerful than your average human. So you're talking about me, aren't you?"

"Maybe I am."

"Well, I think I understand. There's a really, really big power ladder where I come from. Lots of people are afraid of me, thinking I can't coexist with humans, even while I work to protect them." I sighed. "And at the same time... there's one being so far above me... above any of my mates... that we're just as terrified of him... her? Them... as those humans are of us. Powerful... and alien. I don't know if maybe beings with such a huge difference between them... maybe we just can't understand each other? But, you know Sans... I still want to try. With both the folks less powerful than me, and the folks more powerful than me. I just want to save them all, if I can."

There was a long silence in the air after I finished. I went back to eating, until Sans said, quietly "Kid... you're really something."

I huffed. "Okay, man, one more thing: I'm not a kid, stop calling me that." I said.

"Yeah... suppose you're not. Not when you got stuff like that to deal with. Tell me, ki... Touta... if it meant you got to go home... would you hurt people? Maybe even innocent people?"

"Damn..." I had never even thought of the possibility. "I could maybe save a lot of people by going home... but I wouldn't want to hurt anyone, either on accident or on purpose, even if they aren't innocent, if I can help it. I..."

"Well?"

"...I don't know, Sans."

He laughed. "Is it really that funny, man?" I said. "It'd suck to have to make a choice like that."

"Yeah," he said, getting over his laughter. "Yeah it would. It would suck a lot. Hey, man, you've kept me from work for a while, I should get back. Feel free to finish my burger... and Grillby, put it on my tab."

Sans had never even touched his burger. I took the opportunity to finish off my fries and both burgers, and I actually felt pretty full by the time I was done - full of food and even more full of thoughts. 


	11. Meandering Through Waterfall

Once I was done eating, I set out again through the cavern, into the darker, more actually cavern-like area. I gave Sans a wave as I passed by his guard post, and he grinned back.

After that, I encountered a waterfall full of rocks and junk flowing right down the waterway. "This doesn't seem safe," I said as I walked past. "I wonder why they didn't build a bridge. They aren't still building anti-human measures this far in, are they?"

Next there was some tall grass, that looked a bit like seaweed, though obviously it wasn't. "I dub you, landweed." I said, my voice full of fake gravitas. "The monsters probably have a real name for this stuff though, huh..."

I started navigating the landweed when I heard voices from the cliff above. I had trouble making out the voices, but I could definitely tell that one of them was Papyrus.

So I jumped up there. Papyrus was there, talking with another monster in a full suit of armor. "Hey, Papyrus, what's up? How did you even get up this way, I didn't see any paths leading off this way. Oh, you must have followed the river when it branched off, didn't you?"

"Oh. Hello... Touta." Papyrus said.

The one in the armor turned to me. "This is the human?" it said in a gruff but maybe female voice.

"Yeah," I said. "More or less."

"I wasn't talking to you."

Papyrus nodded. "Yes, Undyne."

"It sounds like you..." the armor visibly drooped its shoulders, and audibly sighed. "Papyrus, I'll do this myself. You can go home now."

"But Undyne, you don't have to fight them! I'm sure Touta would be happy to..."

"Shut up and go home!" the armor roared.

Papyrus scuttled off without another word, and the armor turned to me. "Seven. Seven human souls, and King Asgore will become a god. Six. That's how many we have collected thus far. Understand? Through your seventh and final soul, this world will be transformed. First, however, as is customary for those who make it this far... I shall tell you the tragic tale of our people."

So I sat down.

"It all started long ago... you should understand from fighting Papyrus - humans are strong. But they feared us anyway, and waged war against us. If a monster defeats a human, they can take that human's soul and become strong... but not a single human fell in that war. Why fear that power when no monster can use it? They turned countless monsters to dust, and... and... stand up. The story's over." She gestured, and... manifested? Summoned? Summoned a spear to her hand.

I stood up. "Look, I sympathize, but we don't have to fight or anything."

"Don't have to fight? DON'T HAVE TO FIGHT?!" the armor - Undyne, I guess, I figured she was a Dullahan except with a helmet - seemed profoundly angry at that suggestion. Except she started laughing. "You! You're standing in the way of everybody's hopes and dreams! And from what Papyrus said... and from the jump you just made... you're obviously a strong and honorable human fighter! Which is perfect! And yeah I can't sense your soul but that's obviously because you learned to hide it from my senses! But!"

"But what?" I asked.

"But I am willing to honor your human traditions, and wait to fight and kill you until you we are in an open and empty space with nobody nearby who might accidentally die horribly due to witnessing our awesome battle." The armor nodded.

"Uh... thanks?"

"Don't mention it. I'm going to go up ahead and find the best spot. And you better not chicken out! Or kill anybody!" it roared. "Now, just jump back down and follow the path and you'll get through Waterfall just fine." The armor hustled off. And I think she might have been... giggling? Just a little, maybe, I wasn't sure.

I jumped back down, and a kid stumbled out of the landweed. "That... was... awesome!" he said. "Undyne was... and you were... and... are you a bad guy?"

I shrugged. "Undyne thinks so."

"Boy, you're in trouble now! I'm gonna run ahead and see if I can find Undyne, I've gotta watch your awesome fight!"

"She said that people who were watching might die." I said, a note of worry in my voice.

"Because of how awesome it's going to be!" the kid exclaimed. He started sprinting away and immediately faceplanted into the cavern stone. That didn't even slow him though, he just pulled himself back up and started running again.

I sighed. "Jeez... what a mess this is."

I walked along, jumping past some other places that should have had bridges. Got into a flexing contest - which I think I won? I went the wrong way and I found a dead end with a quiche, it was tasty. "Damn it, am I getting hungry again already?" I asked myself between bites. "It's like it's happening even faster now..."

I was thinking about that while I did the next puzzle and walked through the next area, past some flowers, through a crack in the wall, across some bridges, and through some more landweed. I saw that monster kid again, and he said, "I saw Undyne again! She was looking at the bridge and then she laughed and ran off! What does that mean?"

I shrugged. "Maybe she's going to try to hit me with a bridge?"

"I bet she could. She could probably wield two bridges! One for each hand! That'd be twice as awesome!"

"I guess if I wanted to block them, I'd need to wield a river," I said. "Bridges never touch rivers."

"You could wield an entire river?" the kid asked, his voice hushed with naive, childlike awe.

"Uh... sure!" I said, lying terribly. I watched his eyes grow large, and then he dashed off again.

"Oh jeez... I guess if I absorbed a really powerful water spell I could do something like that... but I hope there isn't anyone down here that powerful, I'd get my butt kicked..." I sighed. 


	12. Undyne Fights

Feeling a bit down after un-hyping myself... I'm weirdly good at that, I don't know why... I walked on. I felt a smile hit my face when I saw Sans up ahead, though, leaning against a wall. "Hey man!" I said. "What's up?"

"Mostly rock," Sans shrugged. "Wanna look through this telescope?" He gestured to a telescope next to him.

"Uh, Sans... it's set up to face a wall. That's like two feet away. There is no way that thing is in focus. Why would anyone look through a telescope set up like that?"

"Huh... that's a good point." he said. "Guess I'll need to put more thought into my pranks. Anyway, what'd you do with Undyne? She ran past here, looking... dangerous."

"Really?" I said, "She sounded kinda like she was having fun when I saw her last."

"Yeah, that's what I said. Dangerous. What did you do?"

I shrugged. "I showed up? I saw Undyne talking to Papyrus and I jumped up to where they were talking. She lectured me and then told me she was going to honor my human traditions by... fighting me somewhere our fight wouldn't kill anyone? She's not that strong, is she?"

"Compared to you? Eh." He shrugged. "She's one of the strongest in the underground though. I wouldn't underestimate her, especially if she's excited about fighting you."

"Yeah. That makes monsters stronger, right? Getting really into the fight."

Sans nodded. "Yeah. The more you care about the fight... and the less you care about who you're fighting... the stronger you get, when it comes to monsters."

"Ah. So 'cause she hates humans she'll hit me harder?"

"You're getting it," Sans nodded.

"Oh man, she sounded really excited to fight me... I might be in trouble."

Sans shrugged. "I'm sure you'll get through it somehow. You strike me as that kind of guy."

"Really?" I laughed. "What kind of guy?"

"Carefree."

"Hey, I've got cares..." I said, reminded of my quest to get back to my home world, "And I should get going. I can't just leave them forever, I've got promises to keep."

Sans nodded. "Yeah. I know what that's like. Just... don't do anything you might regret trying to keep a promise. Okay?"

"You know it!" I said, trotting off.

Ten seconds later I spent the next five minutes explaining what stars were to a... potato... person? I can't describe it. They were in awe of my sweet astronomy knowledge. In retrospect... I might have ADD or something, I don't know. Anyway, I followed a bridge after that.

Down that path there were some beautiful flowers, and then I met an octopus. He told me about how the water level in Waterfall was going down.

"Have you guys ever tried like... damming up some of the water? So that the water levels stay high?"

"Uh... no..." he said.

I said, "Well, you're an octopus! I bet with all those arms, you could build one just fine! Just find out where the water's all flowing out from and stop it up some so that the water level goes up."

"And if I did that..." the octopus said... "maybe all my friends will come back from the city!"

"That's the spirit!" I said.

"I'm gonna go do that!" the octopus said, "Have a good time! In Waterfaalllllllll..."

I walked on after that and taught a mermaid - I think? - "It's a wonderful world". It was a little depressing because she was better at singing than I was. Further along the path, rain started to fall, and there was a nifty, rain-worn statue. It looked like it had been there for ages. I walked past a courteously placed bucket of umbrellas - it was nice, but a little bit of water wasn't gonna hurt me - and walked along in the rain, the sound relaxing, my feet splashing in puddles that cast back no reflection.

And wouldn't you know it, I saw that kid again up ahead. "Yo!" he - she? It? They cried. "So you can't hold an umbrella either? Well, I might as well walk with you." They trotted up next to me.

"Man, Undyne is soooooo cool!" They said as we walked. "She never loses! If I was a human, I'd wet the bed every night, knowing she was gonna beat me up!"

I was going to say I was human, but I'm kind of technically not. I don't think I'm a monster like them though either. "That's nice," I said, kind of lost in thought.

"So this one time, we had a school project where we had to take care of a flower," they continued. "The king donated his own flowers, and we learned about responsibility and stuff. But you know what'd be cool? If Undyne came to school! She could beat up all the teachers!"

I laughed. "That wouldn't be in the spirit of school at all," I said. "She'd need to show you how to beat your own teachers up."

"That'd be so awesome! But... they are innocent, and I wouldn't want to really hurt them. Maybe that wouldn't happen after all."

We walked on, and a castle lay in the far distance. "What castle's that?" I asked.

"That's Asgore's castle!" the kid said.

"Huh. I need to go there... I guess I could get there right now, but I can't skip out on fighting Undyne, it wouldn't be honorable." I said.

Continuing on farther, there was a cliff. "Yo, this ledge is way too steep..." they said, and I shrugged and said, "Not a problem." I scooped the kid up in my arms and jumped up onto the ledge, putting them down. "Done!"

"Wow..." the kid said. I think the rain might have been giving them a cold, because their cheeks were really red all of a sudden.

We walked on a bit farther, and I saw Undyne. "Cool!" the kid cried.

"What are you doing!" the armor roared. "I ran all the way out here and jumped up a cliff just so that people couldn't get here! And you go on and bring some kid?! What kind of warrior are you!"

"Uh... I wasn't thinking. But don't worry! Could we like... run on ahead to a fighting spot?"

"Yes! Let's do that!" Undyne exclaimed. "Follow me!" She ran ahead.

"Nooooo! Don't leave me!" the kid yelled.

"Ssh..." I said to the kid. "Just follow us from a distance, keep Undyne from being able to spot you, and you'll still be able to be close to the fight." I also figured, that'd force the kid to be far enough away from the fight they won't get exploded or somethiing.

They nodded, a stupidly huge grin on their face. "Okay!"

"Cool." I looked back and saw I was falling behind. "Gotta go bye!" I said before shunpoing across a big series of bridges.

A moment later, Undyne looked back to see me matching her step along the bridge. "Good," she said. "For a moment I thought you weren't following me."

"Nope, right here with you!" I said.

We ran to a bridge that stuck out into the wide void. Is it still a bridge if there's no other side? Like a peninsula but for bridges. A bridgeinsula.

"This will be where our fight is!" Undyne crowed triumphantly. "It's obscure and there's nothing we could accidentally destroy out here! Only things we can intentionally destroy! Like you! And human..."

"Hmm?"

"No holding back your power or anything! I want to face you at full strength!" she manifested her spear again.

I lept back, out onto the bridgeinsula, catching some of the fire in her voice. "Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you!" I said, pulling out my hula hoop and setting it spinning.

The armor laughed. "What is this? You power up with a hula hoop? Does your ultimate attack make me skip rope or something?"

I frowned, and I focused. The wind kicked up between us as the hoop spun around me without touching me, my powers separated, ready at my call. I could feel my magic, a tremendous well, the mere trickle flowing from it making my hair whip about and the bridgeinsula creak. Undyne took a half step back, raising her arm up.

"Okay, not bad!" She called. She manifested a second spear and threw it at my feet. "You'll want that," she said.

I picked up the spear, feeling its heft. It was light, and looked sharp, as a magic spear probably should. "Nah," I said, casually tossing it off the bridgeinsula. "I won't need it. I can use a sword, but I'm confident enough with my fists."

"Arrogant human!" Undyne roared against the wind. "Don't think I'll show mercy!"

I grinned at her, taking a stance. "Then come."

Undyne lunged with surprising speed. I raised my arm, focusing my ki onto my skin as the point of the spear drove towards my heart. Her weapon struck that arm as I parried it, sparks flying from the point of contact as the point and force of the spear did nothing.

"A monster told me that you guys blunted all your tools," I said. "What's up with that spear?"

"I'm in the royal guard. Killing a human with a weapon humans invented is just what they deserve!" She brought down the spear in an overhead strike, and my hand raised to meet it, the weapon glancing off of me a second time.

"You aren't going to defeat me," I said.

Undyne growled. "You think just because you're a human... Take this! NGAHHH!" She thrust one more time, and I again deflected the point of her spear with my arm, focusing my ki at the point of impact to harden my body. But, at that instant, Undyne twisted the point of her weapon, yanking it backwards and dragging the barbed rear of her spearhead along my arm, slicing it open.

"HA!" She yelled triumphantly, "You do bleed! I just have to hit you somewhere unexpected!"

"Damn..." I said, shifting stance in response to her drawing blood, my arm steaming in the cool, moist air of Waterfall. My fists closed as I got ready to fight back seriously.

At that moment, I jumped backwards, and Undyne, apparently with strong warrior instincts of her own, backflipped away from me - as a boulder slammed down between us, breaking the bridgeinsula.

With no ground beneath me, I started to fall. 


	13. Mad and Sad

I was just about to void shunpo back up onto what was left of the bridgeinsula to finish the fight, when I sensed that sharp power again. Spinning around in midair, I saw a blue and white flash streak away from me, and I lept after it, completely forgetting my fight with Undyne. "Hey, wait up!" I called out as I sped after the blur. I was pretty confident this was the same blur I'd seen and chased in Snowdin, and my curiousity was driving me crazy about it.

Like the last one, this chase was very fast and very short. I gained on it and just before I could start to make out details, it vanished again, as suddenly as it appeared, leaving me looking around as I dropped into a little field of flowers.

Beyond the little mound was a waterfall, a lot of water - I couldn't see where the water was draining - and a lot more junk, in piles and piles. "Oh, that must be where the water flows out, where the piles are" I said, "and the junk blocks the flow and lets the water build up. But wouldn't that mean there'd need to be people constantly moving and cleaning up the trash down here? And... is that a super nintendo?"

There wasn't too much of interest, except a perfectly intact cooler with some food in it - yes, I was checking the junk for food, and yes, I did eat the actually pretty cool old-style astronaut food, I was hungry enough that I was eating trash by this point and I was really concerned about that.

There was also a dummy, like the one Toriel had, which wasn't really that interesting except that it came to life with an angry roar and floated over to me. After talking flowers, skeletons, and humanoid potatoes, I just wasn't even surprised anymore. "Sup," I said.

"Sup? Sup?" The dummy stammered. "Oh, you know what's 'sup', you hypocrite! Don't pretend you don't!"

"Huh?" I was a little dumbfounded.

"I have a relative who's a dummy over in the ruins who told me about you, buddy!" he continued. "He said you said you would've fixed him up if you had the tools! Well, guess what, this place is full of tools, and I'm in a dummy too, and you didn't fix me up at all! You were just making excuses! Excuses!"

"I'm, uh, kind of busy looking for someone..."

"EXCUSES!"

I took a deep breath. "Okay. Follow me - we're gonna go dig through some trash."

"EXCU... what?"

"I'm gonna need a sewing kit and thread, and some stuffing, looks like you've lost a good bit." I turned around and walked to the nearest junk pile, shuffling through it. "Hey, what's your name?"

"Uh. I'm... Mad... Dummy...?" it said, hovering behind me, sounding a bit disarmed.

"Cool name. I'm Touta. Touta Konoe. Hey, do you breathe?"

"What? Dummy!" He responded, "I'm a ghost possessing an object, I obviously don't breathe!"

"No, no. I mean your outside. You look like you're stuffed. But in a wet place like this, you're probably super mildewy if your fabric holds water. On the other hand, I guess you can just hover out of the water... except for when it rains... hmm... actually do you need to be stuffed with cotton like that?"

"Yeah, I love being soggy and soaked with mildew!" he barked.

"Oh, uh... okay. Hmm..."

"Jeez, you moron, I'm joking, of course I hate it! It sucks! But empty stuff works even worse to possess!"

"Hmm, okay. So some other filling that won't retain water... and then I'll want to mostly seal up your openings... you look like you separate a whole lot when you move, so actually sewing your parts together probably wouldn't work. Could I sew your individual parts closed?"

"How about I chop off your head and sew THAT closed, buddy!"

"So that's a no then," I said as I shoveled through piles of trash. "What's your ideal stuffing like, then? Do you feel your own weight? I could use scrap metal..."

"That'd be badass... but yeah, being heavier'd make it harder to move, so can't really do that."

"Well, I wouldn't say can't. But I'd be pretty limited. Man, you can really tell we're under the old US, there is like no recycling going on here. But that works out for us, aluminum is a pretty good option here! Though... it really feels like someone's already grabbed most of the good cans, hmm... What do you think of glass, actually?"

"Oh man... I could be SHARP!"

"Yeah! If you're gonna dress, dress sharp, right? Or at least... dress with jars. There's a bunch of mason jars here. They're good jars, you'll like them. And something about falling through an underground river is pretty good at cleaning these! ...at least the ones that aren't still sealed, eww. Good thing there's flowing water here to work with..."

I got to scavenging and cleaning, and for a while, the dummy was quiet. Eventually, I heard him quietly say, "...why?"

I looked up, my hands full of jars. "Why what?"

The dummy looked down at me, silent a moment. "Why... this!? Why do all this stuff to help me?"

The answer was obvious. "Why not? Now get down here so I can swap out your 'stuffing'. And hey, I found some stretchy rope, I think it's bungee cord, I'mma use that to hold the glass in and hook your parts up better. That'll have the give I think you need."

As he floated down, he looked... defeated. I cleared out his insides and washed out all the mold - good thing I'm immortal or who knows what I'd have gotten in my lungs - and then I packed him up tight with the glass, gotta minimize the clinking, and I covered his exposed holes with a couple cords. "There we go! I think that's about all I can do. What do you think?"

"It's... great..." he said, not looking at me.

"Hey, you aren't just saying that, are you? You sure don't sound like you think it's great!" I crossed my arms.

"Well, I'm sorry I ain't freakin' loud enough for ya!" He roared in response. "It's just...! Nobody's...! Ever done... anything... so nice for me..." he trailed off.

"Aww. That's a shame, you don't seem like that bad a guy..."

"ARGH! You don't get it, do you! I ain't happy dummy, here! I'm MAD Dummy! It doesn't make friends but it's my thing! It's what I got! IT'S ALL I GOT!"

I reached to hug him, and he spun around and flew off, sobbing. "Man... I just screw everything up, don't I..." I said.

I heard a soft laugh come from behind me. "He probably just left because he saw me coming..." said the owner of the voice. I turned around to see a ghost. Like... a novelty, sheet-over-head ghost. In fact...

"Hey... have I ever jumped over you?" I asked. 


	14. Like Nothing

"Oh... you recognize me..." the sheet-ghost replied.

"Yeah, it wasn't that long ago. Sorry I didn't say hi, but you looked like you were asleep, you know?"

"That... yeah. I was asleep... mostly... so I live in the area up ahead... you can come by and visit if you want... I won't be asleep this time... if you want... I'll understand if you don't..." He backed up, then flew away.

I walked on, and after the dump was a pleasant, quiet area, a branching of cavern paths. I recognized one of them, and after walking down it a bit and spotting a little bird, I groaned. "I could've just jumped over this little river? Sheesh. This place needs road signs! And why isn't there a bridge here?"

"I'm the bridge!" the bird squawked. "I'll carry you across if you want!"

"Uh... that's very nice, but I, uh... don't need it anymore. But it's good that you're helping monsters across."

"Thanks!"

I headed back and checked out another one, and there was a giant... fish-shaped... house? An angry fish shaped-house, no less. I poked the teeth-door. "Are you... a sentient house, or something?" No response, and I felt a little dumb. I also spotted a very familiar dummy in the yard. "Sup, Mad." I said as I passed. I got no response, but he vibrated a little.

Moving along, I ran into two almost identical houses. "Woah, do like twins live here or something? That'd be pretty cool." I peeked my head into one, and cool old-school video game music, like MIDI sequenced stuff, was playing. Well okay I guess it wasn't that old-school in this universe, their technology's not the same. But I'm getting sidetracked, the point is the music was cool. Seemed like it was being played by a computer system in the corner, with my ghost buddy tinkering with it. "Hey, sup man!" I said. "Er... sup... ghost? How does that work? What's your name?"

"Oh... you really came... my name is Napstablook... but however you want to call me is fine... I... wasn't expecting you to come though. It's not much, but make yourself at home."

"It's cool. Simple place, but nice space. Bigger than the tiny room I sleep in that's for sure! So anyway, what music is that?"

"Oh... do you like it? This is something I sequenced... it has three whole fans on the Undertunes forum..."

"Oh sweet, you made this? That's awesome! Did you use a keyboard? I've played a MIDI keyboard a couple times..."

"No... I use sequencer software."

"Awesome, you want to show me? I've seen a little bit of software like that, but I've only ever seen it to manipulate prerecorded stuff, not to actually make anything from scratch! Oh, hey, I've seen software almost just like this! Alternate dimension stuff is crazy..."

So he showed me how he would sequence songs note-by-note, paying careful attention the entire time, it was awesome. Other music he'd made was also cool. "I try to get a haunting vibe to my songs, you know..."

After we were done, he had a sandwich. "Would you like one?" he asked, and, amazingly, I wasn't actually that hungry. "No, I'm fine," I said.

He ate, and afterwards he said, "After I eat, I like to lie down and feel like garbage... it's a family tradition... do you want... to join me?"

"Sure!" I said.

"Okay... follow my lead..."

We just laid on the floor, the music playing. Slowly, I zoned out, and I figured it was like a kind of zen thing, or something. So I stopped thinking and let myself become nothing, and just lied like that for a while.

After a while, I heard a small clapping sound, and Napstablook said, "How are you doing that...? It's very windy..."

I opened my eyes and sat up, my senses coming back to me. The first thing I noticed was the incredible power surging through my body. "What's going on?" I asked. The next thing I noticed was that the aura of that power that my body was generating was making all the furniture rattle around. "Oh man, this is me isn't it?"

"Yes... please stop... you'll make my computer fall..."

"I don't know how to stop it, I don't even know how I did it! I'll... just get going. I'm sorry I'm trashing your place..."

"It's okay. It was fun... goodbye..."

So I slipped out, and walked on. The storm of energy slowly wore off. "Man, I wish I knew how I did that..." I mumbled to myself.

As I was walking past a place that looked like a mine shaft, I heard a cackle. "Sounds like someone's out there? Why don't ya come on into my shop, eh?" So I shrugged and walked inside.

And inside was a super old turtle guy, in like an indiana jones type of outfit. "Woah there! You a human? You sure look like one! Well, it doesn't matter, I'll pawn my junk off on you anyway!"

I laughed. "I guess I'm kind of human. I'm human enough Undyne wants to kill me."

"Oh, so you've got the local hero after you, eh? Not too surprised. In fact... she just came through here asking about someone who looked like you."

"Yeah, I guess I'm gonna have to give her the fight she wants sooner or later."

The old turtle cackled. "Wah hah hah! Yeah, she'll hound you to the ends of the underground if you don't! And maybe even if you do!"

Laughing along, I noticed something funny. "Hey, what's that thing on the wall behind you?" I asked. It was a glyph with a circle in the center, flanked by two mirrored, three-pronged circular segments each about ninety degrees, and underneath the circle were three triangles close together, one facing downwards and two facing upwards.

"Eh? You don't know what that is? I guess you wouldn't, eh, if you're from the outside. That's the Delta Rune, the emblem of our kingdom. The Kingdom of Monsters. Great name, huh? Ol' King Fluffybuns can't name for beans, is what I always say."

"Cool! So what's it mean?"

"That emblem actually predates written history. The original meaning has been lost to time... All we know is that the triangles symbolize us monsters below, and the winged circle above symbolizes... somethin' else."

"Hmm..." I looked it over carefully. "So you don't even really know if those segments mean wings, huh? And how do you know the triangles mean monsters as a whole? Maybe it means three specific monsters who are really close to each other, or something, or maybe two monsters and something else driving a wedge between them. Or... maybe it's legs! Big triangular feet with a triangular pelvis, and the wings are arms stretched open wide, and the circle is a head!"

The turtle looked it over. "Aww dang, now you got me seein' those wacky arms and legs! Wah hah hah! What we know's just from old stories. And most of those stories say that the circle there's the 'angel' from the prophecy."

"Prophecy?"

"Oh yeah, the prophecy. Legend has it, an 'angel' who has seen the surface will descend from above and bring us freedom. Lately, though, folks've been taking a bleaker outlook... callin' it the 'Angel of Death', here to 'free' us from this mortal realm..."

"Oh woah... which do you think it is?"

"Well... I just think it's really neat!" He laughed again. "So... you gonna buy anything?"

I shrugged. "Sorry, no gold."

"Aww, that's fine. It's nice to just chat with a new face every so often. You take care of yourself, okay kid?"

"Hey, I'm not wearing a striped shirt..."

"Heh, yeah, but I know a human kid when I see one."

I frowned. "Yeah, yeah... talk to you later, old man." I could hear his cackling as I left. I guess he was a pretty cool old guy.

"Man, I'm gonna be a cool old guy one day," I said self-reflectively as I continued on. "I'll still look like a kid though! That'll suck. Except I'll still be healthy... immortality's such a mixed bag..."

I passed along into a dimly-lit area, walking along - and jumping between - paths of phosphorescent mushrooms and grass. "Man, I wish Kuroumaru were here... I'm sure he'd know some way to light things up and make this super easy!"

After that, I stumbled into an area with more water, but not more light. "Man I hope it doesn't just keep getting darker and darker. I'm trying to go up towards the surface after all..."

Just then, I heard a quiet voice from the darkness. "Don't worry, Touta... I've been watching over you."

"Oh hey, Flowey, what's up?" I asked.

"I thought you might have trouble around here, so I waited up for you," he said.

"I appreciate it, man," I said, plopping down near where I could hear the flower. "Undyne's really got it out for me, doesn't she?"

"You have no idea," Flowey said. "You're gonna have a really tough time getting her to stop, Touta. You don't want to have to kill her, right?"

"Yeah, I don't want to kill her. Not if I can help it. But if she'll keep chasing me no matter what, I don't think I can run. Hell, I don't want to run. I want to face her without killing her."

"Do you think you're strong enough to do that, Touta?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Undyne's probably the strongest I've met in the underground... but I think I could still beat her."

"Well, maybe you can try to beat her up... just a little. Undyne seems to respect strength and all that warrior code type of stuff, so maybe if you just show her you're stronger, Touta, she'll give up?" Flowey sounded like he moved closer.

"Yeah. That's probably my best bet. I was thinking of it, but now I'm sure. Thanks, buddy. Now... could you lead me out of here?"

I heard some shuffling, then Flowey's voice from the other side of me. "This way," he said, and I stumbled onto a path dimly lit by a few luminescent blades of grass. "You can just follow this. I'm not coming with - Undyne's pretty dangerous, and I'm just a flower, I don't want to get hurt by accident in your fight. Good luck, Touta... you're gonna need it..." He ducked back into the ground.

"Thanks again, Flowey," I said to the patch of dirt he left, hoping he could still hear a little. I continued on, following the path through water and across a bridge - it was small, it was wooden, but it was a long, real honest to god bridge. "Huh, looks like they can do it when they get serious," I said.

"Yo..." I heard from behind me. It was the monster kid. "Hey, I tried to talk to Undyne, tell them you weren't really a bad guy, but... she said you were human? Is that true?"

I nodded. "Mostly."

"Man! I knew it!" the kid said. "Well, I know it now I mean. Undyne told me to stay away from you, so... I guess that makes us enemies. Could you... say something mean? So I could hate you?"

I smirked. This kid felt a bit like me, and if so, I knew exactly how to piss them off. "You can't do anything here, kid. Just go home to your parents."

"Hey! That's what Undyne said!" the kid said, a bit more forcefully, their back straighter. "And... if I'm not gonna listen to Undyne... I'm not gonna listen to you either!"

"That's the spirit," I said. "Gotta take your problems into your own hands, right? That's how you fix 'em."

He drooped again. "Oh, you were just saying that, weren't you, so I could hate you? But... it's kinda right, isn't it. If Undyne's the one who wants to fight you, then I probably couldn't do anything. I'm... just gonna go home."

He turned around to go home, and charged down along that bridge, and tripped. Instead of faceplanting, though, he stumbled off to the side, falling off entirely. His tail whipped up to try to grab the edge of the bridge, but the board splintered where it impacted, and slipped off.

So I jumped off the bridge with a shunpo, aiming for underneath the kid. I scooped them up in my arms then void shunpoed back up, putting them down on the other side of the bridge. "You gotta be careful, there aren't any rails on these bridges," I said.

They said, blushing again all of a sudden, "Th... thanks... I'm gonna go..." they turned around to leave, only to look up, and up. "Undyne!" they exclaimed. They stood up straighter, and said "Yo... dude... if you're gonna hurt my friend... you're gonna have to get through me, first."

"Hey," I said, coming up behind them and gently putting my hand on their shoulder. "It's fine. Come on, Undyne. If you know another good place to fight, we can finish this."

"But..." the kid said.

"Don't worry, nobody's gonna die," I said. "Trust me."

The kid nodded and ran off, and Undyne said, "That's not your promise to make, human. Still... th... this way. Follow me."

I followed as she clanked across the bridge, then a second smaller bridge. "This'll work," she said. "Here we can't accidentally destroy any bridges either. I don't even know how that happened. I was watching you the entire time, I know you didn't do it."

I shrugged. We are underground. Does that happen often?"

"No. Guess you just got lucky. But your stay of execution ends here." She reached for her helmet, and pulled it off - revealing that she wasn't a suit of armor at all! She was just like... a fish person in a suit of armor. She casually threw the helmet to the side, cracking her neck with an enviously loud noise. "Aaaarrgh... that armor is stiff, and you're fast. This'll help me keep my eye on you."

She manifested her spear as she stepped away, turning to face me and taking a combat stance. "You're just what I expected from a human... strong, and ready to fight. Defeating Papyrus at his strongest... facing me without running... you can die knowing you've earned my respect!"

I sighed. "You won't be able to kill me, Undyne. You have no idea how much you're not gonna be able to kill me."

"We'll see about that!" She roared. "Your life stands between us and our freedom - even as strong as you are, I will fight! I will see you fall! I can feel the hearts of the underground beating together, as one - we've all been waiting our whole lives for this moment... we can't lose. No matter what it takes... I will show you how determined monsters can be! NGAHHH!" she lunged at me.

I avoided her initial, wild lunge by ducking and rolling to the side. By the time I was up, I already saw her spear swinging at my head, and I raised my arm and deflected it. She brought it back down, and I stepped forward so that the shaft of the spear thwacked against my neck. She yanked backwards, trying to claw the barbed spearhead along my neck, but I knocked the shaft away, the barb catching the back of my hand instead.

"You sure you don't want a spear?" Undyne joked, a grin on her well-toothed face.

"That's fine," I said, the cut on my hand healing as I thought about how to show my strength to Undyne without hurting her... but I wasn't really coming up with any ideas. She continued to fight, hurling a barrage of attacks and occasionally drawing a quickly healing slice through my flesh.

After minutes of this, she showed no more sign of slowing than I was, but she was definitely showing signs of frustration. "JUST DIE ALREADY!" she screamed again. "HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE! I'VE HIT YOU SO MANY TIMES! Just take the hint that spears kill things AND DIE!"

"Not gonna happen, Undyne," I said. "Just give up."

"No! I will not give up! I WILL NEVER GIVE UP!" She lunged at me, her attacks even more savage.

"Okay, then," I said. I could probably hit her pretty lightly. Considering how thick that armor looked, I could probably bang her around a little bit without breaking any bones or anything - maybe that would help her get the idea.

So the next time she swung her weapon, I dodged to the side, taking two steps forward to move inside of Undyne's guard, in front of her, beneath her extended - overextended, now - arms. I shifted my weight forward, and pushed my elbow forward against her breastplate.

I met no resistance, and I rolled back, figuring she had dodged.

But Undyne had not moved at all. My strike had gone through her like she was nothing. She staggered from the gaping hole in her chest, and her spear clattered to the ground and vanished. 


	15. Undyne the Dying

I stumbled back. "Undyne?" I asked.

She laughed, weakly. "Did you... in just one...?"

It was real. Not a joke, not a trick. "I'm sorry, I didn't think that... I thought your armor would... what's going on?"

"And you weren't... even... trying? You didn't even want to fight, and you... by mistake..." her body was melting, slowly, and her eye had a sad tinge. "I guess... humans really do..."

"Oh jeez! You're still up, you aren't dead yet, right?" I said, my voice sounding desperate. "Maybe there's some magic... thing? You can do?"

"h.a.v.e..."

"No! Please! Don't... don't die!" I put my arms around her, trying to hold her up, and she drooped around them.

"d..e..t..."

Dust fell about me. Undyne was gone.

I collapsed to my knees, staring at my dusty hands. "I... killed her... I didn't mean to..."

I heard a shuffling in the dirt next to me, and a voice said, "Really? You? You've never killed anyone before? As stupidly strong as you are, and you've never ended a life?"

Drops of water fell onto my hands, and I vaguely grasped that I was crying.

"Sheesh..." the flower trailed off. "This isn't fun like I thought it would be. Look, Touta. We can bring Undyne back, she's not really dead," he said. "So pull yourself together, okay?"

I sniffed, and then I sneezed. Undyne's corpse floofed everywhere. "Oh god!" Then I sneezed four more times, just making it worse, until I stumbled away. "Oh god I've been inhaling her body... do we have to... gather the dust?"

"Nah, I can handle it. Let's just take a minute to... get you composed, okay?" The flower smiled at me. "What's your world like?"

I took some slow breaths. "My world... it's called Earth, just like this one. But my world's more technologically advanced. We're developing space travel and Mars has been terraformed. I don't think there's a Mount Ebbot in my world... but instead, there's Mundus Magicus."

"What's that?" the flower asked, sounding fascinated.

"The Magic World. It's an entire planet of, well... monsters like you guys, I suppose. Some more human and some less human. And there are wizards and all sorts of stuff. And it's Mars. But in a different plane of reality?"

"Wow... that sounds awesome. So there are wizards... from space? That's so awesome!" Flowey sounded almost like a child, just then. "You said you were made... did a wizard make you?"

"Huh. Probably," I shrugged. "I don't know too much about it. I guess Yukihime made me... she never told me much about it."

"Who's Yukihime?"

"Yukihime... that's not actually her name. Her name's Ki... Evangeline. She's an ancient vampire. I'm a vampire too I guess, but I never really notice, I don't drink blood or anything. Anyway, she's my boss."

"Your boss? What's your job?"

"I'm part of an NGO." I puffed out my chest a bit as I spoke, proud of what I did. "I'm in an organization of immortals that exists to protect humanity. We're called UQ Holder."

"Immortals... like people who live forever? Who never age and die?"

"Yeah. Well... some of us are more immortal than others. You'd be amazed how many different ways there are to be immortal!"

"Yeah... I bet." Flowey said quietly. "So... humans... usually age, get bigger and look older, right? But because you're immortal, you stopped at your current age and you'll never do that?"

"Yeah. It kinda sucks, too, but I can't really complain, not dying when I get killed is a pretty sweet perk you know?"

"...yeah. But... don't you get bored?"

"Heh. I guess some immortals can get bored. But in UQ Holder there's always work, you know? The world's no paradise. Plus I've only been an immortal for a few years. I'm not sure, it's hard to keep track when you're training and lost in time warps and stuff."

"That all sounds really awesome. So... if you met an immortal in this world, someone who didn't age or couldn't die... could they go back with you and join UQ Holder, too?"

"Yeah! That'd be cool! Is... is Undyne immortal? Is that why we aren't sweating that she's a pile of dust right now?"

"...close." Flowey gave a huuuge grin, like bigger than any human could.

* * *

I stumbled back. "Undyne?" I asked.

She laughed, weakly. "Did you... in just one...?"

Flowey burst out from the ground next to me. "Touta!"

I turned to the flower. "What can I do? Help! I don't want her to die!"

"Monsters are made of magic, Touta - if you absorb Undyne, you might be able to keep her alive long enough to heal her!"

Before he even finished that sentence, I'd pulled out my hula hoop, started swinging, and lunged forward, my left hand clapping wetly against Undyne's armor. "Stagnet!" I cried, and the slightly melty, very surprised fish lady's body was sucked into a sphere around the palm of my hand. "Complexio!" I crushed the sphere, absorbing the power - absorbing Undyne. I could feel her inside me, a big blue blob of magic, barely held together by a handful of red threads, spinning, trapped, angry and confused and ashamed about her fight against me, and...

"Now what?" I cried. "I can still feel her dying!"

"With powers like that," Flowey cried, "You must have magic - if you have any way of sharing your magic with her, you need to do it!"

"I can't cast spells, though, I don't know how! The magic I have is... oh." Inside me. And I can do more than just absorb, hold, and fire out a spell... I can merge with it, absorbing it into my spirit, making it a part of me. Maybe that would be enough... and even if it wasn't, it was the only trick I had. So I did it. "Supplementum! Pro Armationem!"


	16. Undying Hero Form

I was taller.

I wore scale and armor, now, and I'm pretty sure my left eye was shining, a little bit. Also I was... we were? Still dying, but it wasn't too terribly bad now. I could feel my magic whittling away, as Undyne's unstable life force drew upon it to sustain herself. I had a lot of magic, though, so I felt like we bought some time.

"What the hell?!" my voice shouted. "Did you... fuse with me?"

"Undyne? Is that you? Well... yes..."

"This. Is. AWESOME!" My arms thrust into the sky. "But how are we going to fight now?"

"Hey, you two, focus!" the flower at my feet yelled. "How you feeling, Touta?"

"I'm feeling GREAT!"

"Not you fish-face."

I said, "Not too good. Undyne's alive but I can feel myself getting weaker by the second. Don't know what'll happen if I run out of magic..."

"I do, she'll die! You need to find someone in the underground with healing magic!" The flower barked, "And fast!"

"Pssh, nobody in the underground has healing magic," Undyne said with my mouth. Our mouth? She also rolled our eyes.

Flowey said, "Someone does. Toriel, in the ruins. Can you make it there in time, Touta?"

"One way to find out." I turned back, dug my feet in, and took hold of the ground.

As I shunpoed across the first bridge, my mouth opened and said, "Holy jeez this is amazing! How are we going so fast!"

Replying might have slowed me down, so I didn't. I just jumped past the second bridge, then jumped over the water with the helpful bird, and kept on running along the way I came, as fast as I could. I was never so aware as to how much magic I had as I was at that moment, seeing every bit of my magical power as another second of Undyne's life.

"And hey, did we... so there was someone who could use healing in the ruins? How're you gonna get there, huh? The door's locked!" my mouth continued.

I responded this time, as we ran past Snowdin Town. "I'll open it."

"What are you, stupid? That door's made out of solid metal! Strong metal! I've never even been able to scratch it!"

I didn't respond. I was busy jumping over puzzles I'd jumped over on the way here, my feet landing every few tens of meters, crunching hard into the snow. I could feel myself starting to get tired - I didn't have much time to spare to talk.

I saw Sans, briefly, lounging at his station as I ran by. I'm not sure he noticed. And then there was the door.

I stopped and knocked. "Anyone there?" I called, giving it a precious couple seconds. "If there is, step back, I'm breaking the door down!"

I focused my ki, brought my fist back, and swung it forward against the door with all of my strength. My fist hit with enough force to shake the ground. I probably would have heard snow falling to the ground from the trees around me... us, except that I'm pretty sure I broke every bone in my arm. I heard that instead.

I screamed. I think Undyne was trying to say something too, but my mouth was too busy with the screaming. Thankfully, I was still immortal, and within a couple seconds the bones in my arm were all back in their right places. I looked over the door. No dent. No scratch. "How?" I asked.

"I KNOW!" my voice roared. "It doesn't make any sense! No door is this strong! What's it even made out of!"

My breath was starting to come with difficulty - I was getting more exhausted by the second, as my reserves of magic were depleting along with Undyne's still unstable life. "It's okay. Just... need to think." I literally took a step back and considered the door. "Okay... door's looking pretty invincible. Enchanted or something and... I don't want to risk using my Magic Cancel... door's built into solid rock, so... wait."

I stepped forward again, this time to the rock to the side. Not quite solid rock - there was a hairline crack to the side of the door now, all around the door's frame. "Did I do this?" I grinned. "If I can't open the door..."

I slammed my fist into the stone next to the door. It hurt like hell, but this time there was a cracking and crumbling as shards of stone fell away - enough to give me a handhold. I grinned as I planted one hand on one side and one hand on the other, dug my fingers in, and took a deep breath.

And I tried to open the rock.

My muscles strained. My strength focused... and nothing moved. "Damn it..." I growled. "I can't... I'm not strong enough...!"

I felt my muscles pushing harder. My body putting even more strength, even more power, into the task of tearing the door out of its solid stone frame entirely. "LETS KILL THIS DOOR!" I heard Undyne scream with my... our voice.

"Yeah, that's the spirit!" I said, feeling pumped, even while I was feeling more exhausted by the second. Together, our muscles strained against the solid rock... and there was a creaking. Then a cracking. Then a slow shifting, as the entire, unopened metal door frame started to slide slowly to the side. The hole in the rock became a hairline crack to what lied beyond it, and then a bigger crack, and bigger, and bigger. The stone groaned and snapped around me, shards of it slicing at my arms and legs, the wounds healing as usual but more slowly now as my strength drained.

"Toriel!" I cried into the darkness beyond that crack, as it slowly widened. "I need your help!"

With a final feat of strength, we pushed the gap to arm's width, and I stumbled forward into the ruins once more. "Toriel!" I cried, my voice growing weaker from exhaustion. "Toriel!" I cried again.

"Hey, on three," my mouth said. "One, two..."

We took a deep breath together, then both shouted "Toriel!" My voice echoed into the cavern, amplified by two wills. I staggered ahead, step by step, my magic nearly depleted.

I fell to my knees. "Damn it, not now..." I staggered back up, taking a step, then another. I could feel something... growl... deep inside me, and I knew that I was pushing myself too hard. Magia Erebea was originally a curse, so I guess it makes sense that it has downsides. It was still a terrible time for those downsides to kick in.

I could hear footsteps approaching. "Child!" Toriel's voice called out. "What is going on?"

"Healing!" I gasped out, stumbling forward again. While I struggled to get back to my feet, she reached me, and magic poured into me. I could feel Undyne's wounds healing, slowly, the drain on my magic slowing to a trickle, then ending. Shakily, I raised my right arm, and I cast the magic inside me - Undyne - out of my body. The monster landed a few feet from me, shaking her head and regaining her bearings. "I'm... okay?"

I wasn't okay though. I was still exhausted, and more to the point, Magia Erebea was... pissed? Waking up? I don't really know how to describe it. My arms were turning black as my power activated fully without me wanting it to, and I fought against a rising bloodlust urging me to finish my fight against Undyne - and everything else while I was at it.

"Child, are you alright?" Toriel asked me, but I only barely heard her - I was busy dealing with the metaphorical beast within. Actually I guess not really metaphorical? I grit my teeth and pushed back against it, exercising my will to suppress the power - exhausting the last of my magic and stamina in the process as I went back to normal. My hula hoop clattered to the ground.

"I'm fine, Toriel," I said, giving her a reassuring smile as I collapsed into unconsciousness. 


	17. Recuperation

I stood before the Mage of the Beginning, looking smugly at me in her true form. Her attacks had whittled away my defenses, and I knelt before her, ragged, exhausted, vulnerable.

"If you won't do as I desire," she said, "Then you will do nothing." She launched a final attack, and I knew I could not dodge.

In an instant, I was grabbed and carried away. Kuroumaru put me down, twenty meters away from where I was, and gave me a patient smile. "Touta, you really need to stop heading out on your own like this," he said. "How can I stand by you when you're far away?"

Landing to one side was Ikkuu, and to the other side Kirie. Kirie turned to me, grinning. "You helped us live in peace," she said, and her voice sounded like it was three people speaking all at once. And I think one or two of them might've been guys? It was hard to tell, the extra voices were all mixed up, and unfamiliar. "We're going to stay by your side if you like it or not, Touta."

Then the Mage of the Beginning launched another attack, but all it did was drop us all in a giant field of flowers. Then Jack Rakan showed up and kicked her in the face, shouting, "I don't care if this is a dream, I'll do what I want, bitch!"

"Wait, what? This is a dream?" I was justifiably surprised.

"Yeah," Kirie said in her weird multi-dream-voice, "You're asleep. You should probably quit slacking and wake up too, you've got stuff to do. Not like we've got any right to say that." She shrugged, and threw flowers at me. And I realized that time had stopped again. Then Toriel and Kitty showed up and set up a delicious meal of tea and pie, right there in the field of flowers with the frozen Mage of the Beginning just a few tens of meters away, and me and weird-dream-voiced Kirie ate butterscotch pie, which she never had before but instantly became her favorite food ever, and we made small talk while Toriel and Kitty arm-wrestled over who got to adopt me, which I had serious reservations about. I've got a job and everything, I don't need a mother!

Then I opened my eyes. "Why is it I always get the weird dreams after getting my butt kicked by something?" I groaned. I was in a darkened, homely-feeling room, and I realized that it was "my" room back at Toriel's house. I slowly climbed out of bed, feeling my strength return to me gradually - and my stomach immediately growled. "Oh man, time to go back to eating constantly," I said as I opened the door.

I was immediately grabbed by the arms and lifted overhead. Undyne's head, I think - she wasn't wearing armor anymore, so she was just a buff blue fish-lady in a tank top. "He's up!" she shouted, charging down the hall carrying me until she plopped me into a chair that was just a little too small to be comfortable. Sitting around the table was Sans and Toriel, and they were having pie and tea. Toriel offered me some. "You're probably quite hungry, you've been asleep for a couple days. I hope you don't mind snail pie."

"I've never tried it," I said, grabbing a fork and trying it. It tasted garlicky and buttery and the crust was crispy and the meat went really well with it all, tasting a bit like tako sushi. In fact I could probably basically duplicate it with an octopus meat pie, but instead of rubbing in radish I'd add garlic to the mix... "I thought this pie was going to taste slimy and stuff, but this is actually really good!"

"Child," Toriel continued, "It seems you're feeling better. I'm very relieved. Undyne explained what had happened."

Sans said, "Yeah, it was a crazy story to hear. Saving someone's life while they were trying to kill you, that's not something just anyone would do."

Toriel said, "She hasn't tried to kill you even once since then, though, don't worry Touta."

"It wouldn't be fair to kill the kid when he was asleep," Undyne said. "And... well..."

Nobody said anything after Undyne trailed off, and we all just kept looking at her. Undyne looked uncomfortable. "Look, I know when I'm outmatched! When he just... reached out and sucked me up in an instant, it was obvious he was holding back. Then he went so fast through the underground! He's at such a high level... compared to him, I'm just... I'm just a Yamcha."

"No," I protested, "Don't put yourself down like that. You're the strongest monster I've met, stronger than Papyrus was even! And I couldn't have opened that door, er... wall, without your help!"

"Yes... about your 'door opening'..." Toriel said curtly. "I understand because I know you did it to save a life. But you don't understand what you've done."

"Now the most terrible thing can happen," Sans said ominously, "Toriel's ex can drop by!"

"Don't make light of it, please," Toriel said. "Now if another human - a defenseless one - falls, there'll be nowhere they can be safe!"

Sans said, "Maybe instead of trying to use a door to keep the next human safe, you could ask friends for help? You don't need to lock someone up like they're in a safe for 'em to be safe."

Toriel looked down at her pie, picking at it. "Well... Touta should continue his journey to leave the underground soon, should he not?"

"Yeah, about that," I said, "You guys wouldn't mind if I tried destroying the barrier, would you?"

Toriel gasped. "You mustn't!"

Sans shrugged. "If anyone could..."

Undyne grinned. "You're gonna punch it or something aren't you? I want to watch!"

"Yeah," I said. "I have an ability that nullifies magic. If I really focus, I might be able to break the barrier just by hitting it! And that's just plan A. I've got a plan B on top of it."

Toriel sighed in relief. "You... I'm sorry. I misunderstood you."

Sans said, "You thought he was gonna give his soul, didn't you?"

Toriel didn't respond.

Sans shrugged. "Tori, Touta here's the last person you need to be worried about dying. Seriously. Kid beat himself up more than any monster here did just to save Undyne. And here he is, just fine, after doing his mountain sculpting."

"Well," I said between bites of pie, "I'm not recovered just yet, not completely anyway. Probably by tomorrow."

"That's fine," Toriel said, her voice softened. "Rest here as long as you need to, Touta."

"Thanks, old lady," I said. I finished up my pie and tea listening to Toriel and Sans casually swap jokes around the table, a grin stuck on my face. But soon I stretched and headed back to my room to rest a bit more.

This time, with the light on, I noticed something - Toriel had fixed up my shirt! She had put it on the floor in the room, neatly folded, heavily patched, and I just hadn't noticed. I took a deep breath. "Well... maybe a little bit of mothering isn't that bad. Every once in a while." 


	18. Taking Hold of the Ground

I was woken up by a knock on my door. Well, the door to the room I was sleeping in in Toriel's house. It felt good to think of it as my room though, since it was one of the biggest rooms I've ever had to myself. Anyway!

I hopped up and opened up the door, and was pretty surprised to find Undyne before the door. I didn't get a chance to say anything before she collapsed to her knees, assuming the seiza position, and then bowed deeply to me, which just did not look comfortable at all. "Touta Konoe," she said.

"Uh... did I tell you my full name?" I asked.

"I know it from when we fused," she said. "Or I asked Toriel, I dunno, I just know it. Anyway! I acknowledge your strength. And... and..." her cheeks turned red. It was really easy to tell something was up, what with her scales being blue.

"What's wrong?" I asked, leaning over against Undyne and putting my forehead against hers. That... didn't help at all, since her skin was cool to the touch. I pulled back, and she was just blushing even harder. "I can't tell if you have a fever or anything, sorry."

For a long moment, Undyne just sat there, blushing, and... I think shaking a little? Then she bowed again. "Touta... please train me!"

"Oh! I, uh... do you really want me to train you? I don't know all that much..." I said with a shrug. "And out of what I do know, I don't know how much of it I can teach."

"Okay," Undyne said. "Whatever you can. I could tell, Touta... there's a ridiculous gap between us in power! And I want to close it. I want to fight you as an equal!"

I shrugged. "Sounds fun. And... yeah. I think I know something I could teach. Let's head into the ruins."

We walked along, and Undyne quickly got impatient. "Hey, where're we going?" she demanded.

"Riiight here," I said as we reached a long hallway. "Here, I'm going to teach you the Shunpo, or 'quick move'."

"Oh my god that's the trick you used to move really fast, wasn't it?" she said, her eyes bright and her teeth bared in the most goofy-looking hostile grin I've ever seen. Or maybe the most hostile-looking goofy grin. She's got like piranha teeth is what I'm trying to say. "Hell yeah, I want to learn that!"

"Heh. You're way more eager than I've ever been," I said with a laugh. "That's a good attitude towards training."

"Yeah, yeah, get to the good stuff!" Undyne said.

"Okay, so, there are two steps to the Shunpo. First, you take hold of the ground - you gotta get a good grip, really dig your feet in. Then you let go of the world! You just kind of spring off and leave it all behind. Then to finish you do it the other way around, you get to where you want to stop and you grab the world again." I shunpoed back and forth as I spoke to demonstrate, as Undyne watched raptly. "I learned that the big key to it is all about curving your toes right."

Grinning, Undyne bent her knees, slammed her toes into the ground so hard I think she cracked the stone floor of the cavern, and launched off down the hallway. I watched her faceplant a hundred meters away, then slowly skid to a stop over the next ten meters. I shunpoed over. "You okay?" I asked.

She sprang up. "That was awesome! I feel great! Time to start training!" the side of her face she slid on was a little red.

After she 'practiced' twenty or thirty more times, each time nailing the entry into the movement and then fumbling the landing in ever more amazing ways, including shunpoing too far up and hitting her head on the ceiling, shunpoing into the only pillar in the hallway, shunpoing into the walls, shunpoing out of the room into a bunch of spikes which I dragged her back to Toriel for healing about, and landing on pretty much every part of her body you could possibly land on and some I thought you couldn't, she finally shunpoed and nailed the landing.

Her roar of triumph lasted about twenty seconds straight. She was an inspirational warrior. "Wow!" I said once the echoes had died out. "You picked that up super fast! I heard that takes martial artists months to master!"

"Now teach me how to fuse!" Undyne yelled. Her eyes were manic.

"Uh." I put my hand behind my head. Undyne's face drooped.

"That's... one of the tricks you can't teach, huh?" She asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. It's... actually kind of the upside to an immortality curse? Don't ask me how you get from an immortality curse to the ability to absorb magic and fuse with it, I'm not the guy who figured it out, I just copied off of the awesome people who did."

"Woah," Undyne said. "You can't, uh, make me immortal, can you? I know I'm already pretty tough, Toriel said that normally only a boss monster should've been able to stay up after a hit like yours. I've got as much determination as I need!"

I shrugged. "I, uh, don't actually know how to do that. I could make you a vampire which I guess would make you immortal, if it even works on monsters, but I don't know how to share Magia Erebea. And when I think about it... I'm pretty sure I was born with it in the first place."

"Okay. Well... I have a request, then. Could... we fuse again?" Undyne looked at me with the hugest eyes.

"Heh. Sure, why not?" I pulled out my hula hoop and within moments had absorbed and fused with her. This time, without her dying, I felt way less desperate - the transformation was still draining my magic a little, but it was a trickle compared to the flood of the first time.

And, when I had a moment to consider it, I felt stronger, more energetic. Undyne raised a hand, and manifested a spear. "Ooooh... I could shoot way more of these when we're fused!" She pointed her arm down the hallway and started hurling hundreds of spears down it - thankfully the hallway was empty, as she filled the air with a storm of attacks so huge it was practically one of Yukihime's ancient magic spells. I could feel the toll that took on my magic, though.

"Okay, that's enough," I said, pulling our hands back. "Though... there's one thing I want to test. You remember how we were strongest when we were both trying to do the same thing?"

"Yeah," my mouth said. "We tore that crack wide open! We were also really loud!"

"Yeah," I said. "I want to try that. But intentionally. But... I can't think of anything we could do that might not blow something up or bring the mountain down around us."

My mouth made a big, goofy-hostile piranha grin. "Well... nobody's using that door anymore."

We shunpoed through the Ruins and Toriel's house and landed next to the wreckage of the door.

The shards of stone seemed to have been cleaned up some, and there was a hastily improvised sign saying, "Welcome to Home" with a second sign under it, that looked even more hastily improvised, saying "NO HUMAN KILLING PLEASE".

"What do you think of that, Undyne?"

My shoulders shrugged. "I promised Toriel I wouldn't kill any humans who didn't hurt any monsters. Hey, did you know that Sans promised her not to hurt any humans at all? I mean, he'd be completely useless if an an actually dangerous human showed up..." my mouth grumbled.

"Hey," I said, "Let's just punch the door." I stepped over to the imposing metal.

"Hey kid," My mouth said as we stood next to the big door, still closed - though we probably could walk around it and open it if we wanted. "So are you gonna keep all your brittle human bones from breaking this time?"

"Yeah, I'm going to try to focus ki into my body," I said. "There's a technique where you can focus ki to harden your skin - I figure I can probably use it on my insides as well, at least for the instant I'm attacking."

"Cool!" Undyne said. "I can do the same thing too - I'll focus magic into us! Not for the bone thing but to make us stronger! Hell maybe I can make us so strong we break our bones anyway!"

"Heh, why not?" I said with a shrug. I took a moment to focus, brought my fist back, and in the instant I swung my fist forward to connect with the door, focused my ki into my body. I could feel Undyne doing something at the same time on her end, too.

The door exploded.


	19. Real Food

The door - and the rock still connected to the door - split in two, and the two halves flung in different directions. One side careened into a bush, causing a strangely mechanical crunch, and the other side flew through the hole into the hallway leading to Toriel's house. There also wasn't any snow within twenty feet - the shockwave from the attack had blown it all away. "This again!" I exclaimed. It was cool, but annoying that I didn't know how I did it! Did I?

"This is amazing! I feel so powerful! How did you do that?!" My mouth exclaimed. A torrential aura of power surrounded us now.

"I didn't! I don't think? If I did I don't know how I did!" I said. "This isn't the first time either. I did it by accident at a ghost's house too."

"Oh man! Maybe this is what happens when you do stuff with monsters?" She said, "Like your power resonates with us in some mysterious way?!"

I shrugged. "That'd be cool. I don't know if that's what it is though. This happened twice but I've been around way more monsters than just that. Hmm..."

"So," my voice said, "you feeling better now? You certainly seem stronger! Hah!"

"Okay, talking with you like this is too weird." I held out my right hand, and fired Undyne out. She landed on one knee like a badass, and stood and cracked her neck. "But yeah I'm feeling better. Hungry, though."

"Well! Better have some more pie before you go!" Undyne said. "I never knew snail would be so tasty!"

"I know! There's always something new to learn in this world. Er. Universe. Multiverse. And they say that immortals can get bored!"

"Guess those folks need to eat more snail pie too," Undyne joked. "Oh, uh. We should probably clear the rubble out of the way, shouldn't we?"

I laughed when I noticed that we'd basically blocked the path back through the ruins with rock and door. Not completely, just enough to make it really inconvenient. "Yeah," I said. So for a while, we carried chunks of rock and door off to the side, clearing up the place to make a path. "There we go! Let's head back."

We walked back to Toriel's place and Toriel was out. She'd left a note on the table, though, that she was off catching more snails. We both had big slices of snail pie.

"Hey," Undyne said to me once we were done. "You, uh... you take care of yourself, Touta."

"You say that like you aren't like, the second most powerful monster down here, Undyne," I said. "I really don't think I'm gonna be in any trouble."

"Ha! Yeah, I guess. Still. You're my sensei now, and I don't want the wise master who taught me to die or anything. Y'know?"

"Heh. Death is the last thing you gotta worry about me doing. I'm immortal, after all." I shrugged. "Toriel'd... probably cry or something if I went to her and said goodbye, wouldn't she?"

Undyne nodded. "She, uh, got a little bawly just from taking you back to her place. And really protective when I told her what happened, too."

"I imagine. Well, I'm gonna get going, then." I gave Undyne a wave, and got running. I had a bit of a jog back to Waterfall, after all!

That jog wasn't eventful, but by the time I reached where I'd fought Undyne - the path there was a straight shot forward - I was already hungry again. "Jeez, I ate so much snail pie! And it should've been filling! It tasted so filling!" I complained as I walked along.

The air got warmer as I walked, until I left one cavern with a river flowing through it, and came out in a new cavern with a river of lava flowing through it. Or was that magma? It was pretty warm, is the point. Despite that, I found a water cooler that was actually producing pleasantly cold water. "Damn, whoever made that's really smart," I mused as I moved on.

Not long later I encountered a big building, prominently labeled "LAB". "Well," I said with a smirk, "I guess that's where they make the underground's sweet water coolers." I looked around from there to find an elevator that wasn't working and a river, leading me right back to the lab.

The door swooshed smoothly open as I approached. The place looked like a laboratory - clean and futuristic. As I walked in I spotted a huge pile of computer machinery with a massive monitor - displaying what I'm pretty sure was me and Undyne, fused, punching that door in super slo-mo. Looking up at that scene was a yellow, labcoat-dressed... dinosaur? I guess? Dinosaur-monster. They were biting their bottom lip while they were watching.

I walked up behind the dinosaur. "Undyne's pretty cool, isn't she?" I said with a grin.

"Yeah..." they... she, probably, the voice sounded like a girl's... responded, dreamily. She turned to face me and then jumped back a few feet. "T... t... Touta-San!" she stammered, then bowed deeply. "Uh, uh... Konnichiwa! Uh... Watashi wa no... ken...kyu...shitsu e... yokoso?" She seemed like she was really working hard on trying to find words. It was cute.

"Ma'am," I gave her a big grin while I matched her bow, "I really appreciate trying to make me feel welcome, but I've attended enough school to be fluent in English. I've been speaking it the entire time I've been here! So what's your name?"

"Oh thank God..." she mumbled, then looked up at me and smiled goofily. No abundance of teeth, so just 100% goofy. "I'm Alphys! I'm very happy to meet you, Touta. You've... you've made a big impact down here."

"Aw, thanks. Are you talking about the door?"

"I felt that from here," she chortled, "But... not just that. Oh! You must be hungry!" She turned around and hustled towards a refrigerator.

"Uh... yeah, actually." My stomach growled. "Even though I just had snail pie..."

"Well, duh!" Alphys said, rummaging through the fridge. "You're really resistant to magic, right?"

"Well... I guess magic items don't really work for me, unless I'm spinning my hoop. But I don't see...?"

Alphys spun around and shoved a cup ramen into my hands. It looked old and beaten up, but still closed - and so probably still good, since cup ramen lasts so long it might as well be an honorary member of UQ Holder. "Here, we can get some hot water and you can have this, this should tide you over."

"Uh, Alphys... I just had like, meat pie. And it barely filled me at all. Cup ramen's nice, and I'll eat it, don't get me wrong! But I'll be hungry again in like... a few minutes. I wish I knew what was wrong..."

Alphys got a little glint in her eye as she went to prepare the noodles. "I know what's wrong. Monster food is made of magic. So... it doesn't really work for you."

"Uh... so... instead of being digested it's just all... de-magicing? In me?"

"Probably something like that yeah," she shrugged.

I grinned and laughed. "And you got that from the dump! I can eat it, like really eat it, because it's not monster food, it's human food! Just like those astronaut bar things! Alphys, you're a genius!" I grabbed the dinosaur and spun her around. 


	20. First One Small Favor

"Oh!" she exclaimed as I spun her around in delight. "p... p... please put me down?"

"Oh sorry," I said, gently placing her back on the ground. She was heavier than you'd think a monster her size would be - I figured she wasn't quite as flabby as she looked.

"Well," She said after a moment, "I'm... I'm really th... happy that you're thankful. Yeah. There's... a couple favors I'd like to ask... you? Once you've eaten?"

"Sure," I said. "Heck, if it's fast we could do it now while the water's heating!"

"Oh! Okay... there's one thing..." She hustled over to a desk and rummaged around in it until she pulled out a long, cylindrical, heavy-looking object - that looked a little like a battery. "This is a battery!" she said. "Could you charge it with your magic?"

"Uh. Hmm... well... I guess it'd just be like powering a magical item, right?"

"Yes. Because that's what it is." she said. "You should be able to hold each end with one hand, and put energy into it like with Undyne?"

So I pulled out my hoop and grabbed the battery - which was the heaviest battery I'd ever handled too, felt something like 50 kilos in my hands. I pushed my magic into the battery, and a little meter on the battery started to fill... very, very slowly. "I feel like I'm putting a lot of magic into this. I mean, yeah it's a big battery, but... what's it supposed to be powering?"

"A robot," Alphys said. "And it has to be big. You've... you've got a mission you're on, right? That you'll be continuuing once you get out of the underground. So, you know... this is probably the only time you'll ever charge it. We can charge it, but not nearly as fast, so... it kind of has to last a lifetime."

"Oh sweet I'm gonna be powering a robot? That's awesome!" wind kicked up around me as I started pouring more and more of my magic into it. "What kind of robot is it?"

"Oh... it's... a humanoid robot," Alphys said.

"Really? Awesome! Can I see it?" I asked.

Alphys mumbled, "Yeah. You see him eventually."

"Cool." Meanwhile, though, I was starting to get tired. "This thing's only halfway charged," I huffed, "This is super hard!"

"If you want to take a break, the noodles are probably ready," Alphys suggested.

"Yeah, I think I will," I said, plopping the battery back onto the desk. "The last time I had real food was... I guess when I went through the dump now that I think about it. And it was just a couple meal bars, like a day or two ago. How do you guys even keep track of the days here anyway?"

Alphys shrugged. "We don't? Not the way humans do. The only person in the underground on a daily schedule is King Asgore, because sunlight reaches the palace some times of the day and he likes to garden.

"He sounds like a cool guy," I said as I prepped the noodles. I didn't feel like going to any big lengths to improve the noodle batch, I was too hungry and it's okay on its own for one person. So I just ate it. It was okay... but I was just fine with okay, because it made me stop feeling hungry.

"Isn't cup noodle great?" Alphys asked, a huge anticipatory smile on her face.

"Yeah," I said. "Good enough to live on."

"I know! Though... having to use the bathroom is a little weird..."

"Wait. Oh! Because monster food is magic you don't need to poop, I get it! Huh, that makes a lot of sense. I just don't think of it as weird 'cause I've been doing it all my life, you know?"

"Heh. Yeah..." she... awkwarded, "So... could you finish charging that battery?"

I grabbed the battery, started my hoop spinning, and started charging it again. "So, what's the other favor?" I asked.

"Well, uh... I'd like you to absorb a few things, and, uh... spin them. To separate them. Magic things."

"Huh. I've... never done anything like that before. But I probably could, now that I think about it. Just so long as they aren't too solid I guess!"

"Oh you won't need to worry about that. They aren't solid at all." Alphys said ominously.

The battery dinged once it was charged. I handed it to Alphys and she shoved it into a big computer rack with flashing lights and stuff, like out of the first Star Trek. It dinged and started to hum. "He'll take a bit of time to boot," she said. "Maybe... maybe you'd like to rest a bit before... the other thing?"

"Well," I said, "If it's just absorbing something I don't think it'll be a problem. Unless it's like a monster who's dying I guess?"

"Funny you say that..." Alphys said, trailing off. "Anyway, I think just in case you should recover a little. What kind of anime do you like?"

"Shonen, mostly, but I'm good with pretty much anything."

"Have you ever watched Mew Mew Kissy Cutie?" she asked quietly.

"Oh man!" I said. "I have a complicated opinion of that one. The fighting is so good!"

"I know it's amazing!" Alphys said.

"...But the comedy's all really dated puns..."

"Yeah, but it's really culturally immersive into the era...?"

"And the drama is incredible, like episode seven made me cry a little."

"Just a little? It made me cry a lot!"

"But... there's one thing I can't forgive about it."

"What's that?"

"She's oblivious!" I huffed.

"What?"

"You heard me," I ranted, "She's oblivious. Bow obviously loves her, Black Mask confesses twice and she just completely fails to get it both times, their spaceship AI clearly has a thing for her, and even Mew Mew Huggy obviously loves her, and yeah, the manga came out early enough in the century that the same-sex pairing is just fanservice and would never be serious, but still!"

"People... like... her?" Alphys seemed stunned.

"Huh." I said, equally stunned. "Maybe she's not written so unrealistic after all. Okay, I'd be up for a rewatch!"

It was at that moment that I realized that there really were people that socially oblivious, in real life. I'm happy I'm not like that! 


	21. Then One Big One

We ended up marathonning the entire 26-episode show.

"That was better than I remembered it," I admitted, "And I remember it being pretty good."

"I know! It's my favorite show ever... and you know what?"

"What?"

Alphys reached into a big pile of popato chisp bags to pull out an old DVD. "I got the sequel, Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2! It's, uh... just six episodes... but it's probably great!"

"You know, I really should do that favor for you. We just spent like... eight hours watching anime."

"It can wait another couple more!"

I sighed. "Well... it is the sequel. Might as well watch it."

Two hours later, we were left staring at the screen. "Oh. My. God." Alphys said, slowly, as the final credits rolled. "That was terrible!"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"It wasn't kissy and it wasn't cutie, either!"

"And I remember reading a bit of the manga, and like at episode 5 it just completely goes in a different direction."

"And they used the same ship but got rid of the hot bishounen AI!" Alphys huffed.

"And they used a different main character... but they were just the same as the last main character so it was like a boring version of the real series main character."

"And the power levels were way too high!"

"Eh, I didn't mind that so much." I shrugged. "Because I watch so many shonen, and having all of the main characters struggle against really weak dudes right at the start, yeah it makes sense but it's kind of boring after a while, don't you think?"

Alphys giggled. "Undyne said the same thing. She didn't want to watch Dragonball at all, she just wanted to start with DBZ."

"Well, I guess I could see that. Anyway!" I jumped to my feet, "Let's do that favor!"

"Wait!" Alphys said, and I thought for a moment I could hear a note of... panic? In her voice? "We've... totally spent all day watching anime! So... we should... go... to... sleep? First?"

I yawned, uncontrollably, at the mention of it. "Okay yeah. You got like a couch, or a sleeping bag?"

"I-I... only have a bed... just one."

"Well, let's see it, we might both be able to fit on it."

"Wh... what? I..." Alphys slowly got up and walked over to a large and very simple-looking cube. "Th... this is the bed." He pressed down on one of the corners, and the bed unfolded through an amazingly visually intricate process I could not possibly describe - to produce a bed that would definitely fit both of us just fine. "Alphys, you got a sweet bed!" I said, jumping in and pulling off my shirt. "Oh, hey, I don't have any pj's with me, hope you don't mind if I just sleep in my boxers?"

Alphys didn't respond as I tossed my shirt to the side and settled onto the bed, and I looked over to her, a bit concerned. She was stuffing tissues up her nose. "Weird that you'd get nosebleeds down here, it's not like the air's thin underneath a mountain," I observed.

"Y... yeah. Weird..." Alphys said, visibly shaking. I frowned, and jumped out of the bed to land next to her. "Alphys..." I put my hand on her forehead. "Are you sick? You're shaking all of a sudden, and your forehead seems hot. When was the last time you had a good night's rest?"

"I... I have been wo... working a lot, but... it's fine!" She smiled. "I'm fine!"

"Bullshit!" I said, picking her up and swinging around to plop her in the bed, starting to tuck her in. "You were pushing yourself at work and then I had you staying up for hours watching anime! I'm so sorry, Alphys. I'll be quiet while we sleep to help you rest."

"What... what are we going to do in the bed... On... Touta-kun?" Alphys asked quietly, a weirdly extra-goofy grin on her face?

"Uh. We're going to be sleeping together, duh. Uh... Alphys?" I looked, and she was completely unconscious, but otherwise okay. "Oh wow... she must have been really exhausted." Either she went to sleep instantly, or she was so exhausted she fainted. Either way, good thing I got her in bed right away. I curled up on the other side of the bed and slowly drifted off myself.

I woke up after what felt like a solid night's rest - no way to tell, but I was feeling good - and Alphys was still asleep. I hopped up, got dressed, and helped myself to another cup ramen. By the time I got back upstairs, Alphys was up too. "H... hi Touta!" she said. "I hope you slept... w-w-well!"

"Hey Alphys," I said. "Ready to help you with that other favor!"

The color drained from her face, which was impressive because Alphys was actually a pretty vivid yellow a moment before. "I... can't put it off any longer, can I? It's okay, Alphys, this can fix everything... but what if Touta dies?"

"Uh. I can't die. Also, I'm right here."

"T...Touta..." Alphys was breathing hard, "I h-have a lab where I made m-monsters immortal like you. B-b-but..."

"Are they like zombies now or something?" I asked. "I was in a zombie apocalypse once, it sucked."

"Kind of, but... not really. I'll... just take you there," she said quietly, leading me into an elevator. "This feels really fast," I said as it accelerated and decelerated.

"Yeah. I didn't build this elevator," Alphys said as the doors slid open. "Just the outside one. Oh, we're here."

As we were walking into the lab, a giant dog made out of glue tackled us both. At once. I mean it was a giant dog, you know. "Endogeny!" Alphys protested, "I love you too, but please get off!"

The dog got off and just started sniffing at me, using the giant hole that substituted for a face. Eyes stared at me from the negative space between its many legs. "Well, hello. So you're the immortal, aren't you?" I asked, and it barked at me.

"One of them," Alphys said, "But we can start with this one."

I started petting it, and it was super into being pet. It kind of even melted against me a little? But it wasn't really liquid, when I was looking over it. It had the consistency of liquid, but touching it didn't get me wet, and it was warm like something alive, not like water or anything so it wasn't experiencing evaporation. The liquid feeling was more like really loose skin, or... I couldn't place it.

"So, what's wrong with Endogeny?" I asked, "They seem like a good boy!"

"That's... Endogeny is actually seven monsters. Who used to be able to speak." Alphys said quietly. "Endogeny and the others are... very seriously impaired now. Mentally and emotionally. I took monsters on the brink of death and... this happened."

"You sound really bummed about that," I said, "But I mean... immortality's probably better than death, right? Even if the immortality isn't that great?"

Alphys started crying. I went to hug her, and Endogeny flopped wetly onto her, whimpering sympathetically and nuzzling her face. "See, Endogeny doesn't want you to be bummed about it!" I said.

"You're all such good people..." Alphys sobbed, "Not like me..."

All this had gotten me thinking about what the consequences of immortality being revealed to the world would be. Everyone would be trying up experiments like this, wouldn't they? Not everyone would be as nice as Alphys was about it either. But those were thoughts for later. For now...

"Alphys, I'll do my best to help these folks. I promise. You did your best to get this far, and you shouldn't be sad about that. You should be proud, because they'd be dead right now without your help right? Wouldn't they?" Alphys nodded weakly, as she sniffled and petted Endogeny. "Okay. So between the two of us, maybe we can save all these folks. Endogeny?" I raised my head. "Would you like me to try to make you separate people again?"

I didn't think that giant hole could lick, but it could. And it was slobbery. So, so slobbery. I guess, looking back, about seven dogs worth of slobbery. "I'll take that as a yes, that's enough licking you can calm down now!"

Endogeny started running laps around the room, and almost knocked over a nearby vending machine. "Heel!" Alphys called, and the dog scampered up and plopped in front of us. It seemed Endogeny, while excitable, was a good dog. A good... dogs? Dog.

I took a deep breath. "Okay," I said to the giant shambling half-liquid amalgamation of monsters, "Me and Alphys only have some idea how this is going to work. This might not work. This might hurt. Could trying this kill them?" I asked Alphys, and she didn't answer and looked down, and I could guess what that meant.

So I looked Endogeny right in the empty, slobbering face-void and said, "This might kill you. I'll be careful, but do you want to risk your immortality over this?" More slobberlicks. "Okay! That's a yes, I get you man! Heeeeel!"

Once me and Alphys had Endogeny calmed down again, I spun up my hula hoop, I put my left hand on the giant dog-monster's rippling body... and I absorbed them. 


	22. Healing Old Wounds

"Hurf!" I staggered when I absorbed the dog.

"Oh God Touta, are you all right?"

"Whew, yes," I nodded. "It was a surprise though. They feel... heavy? I can't really explain it."

Endogeny felt like taffy. A huge ball of magic taffy, spinning around inside me. I closed my eyes and really focused on them, and I could tell that Endogeny was multiple things, all moving independently, but held together by a thick net of red threads. Kind of like Undyne had but way more of it, actually.

"The stuff you used to make the immortals... is it red?" I asked Alphys.

"Very," was her response.

"Okay, yeah. I'll have to separate the red stuff from them, it's what's sticking them together. But you say there's supposed to be seven of them?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I, uh... don't know how to put this," I said. "It doesn't feel like there's seven monsters worth of... monster-stuff. More like... maybe four?"

"Oh god so they'll die if you take it out I knew it it was all pointless I should never have-" Alphys stopped as I booped her firmly in the nose. Well. What I figured was her nose region. It had nostrils.

"No. Stop that. Alphys, do you think healing magic might be able to help a monster who's missing a part of their body but isn't dead?"

Alphys blinked. "Y... yes. Such traumatic injury usually causes monsters to fall down, but... they were all right for a while after I injected them..."

"So you think if I can separate them, and then somehow get healing magic into them, then I can safely take their determination out?"

"I... I don't know. You'd probably need to take out the determination to separate them... and to separate them you'd need to heal them... and to get the healing to work you'd need to take out the determination... It just seems hopeless."

"So... i'd have to do all three of them at once?"

"I... guess?!" Alphys threw up her hands.

"Okay. I think I can do this. Alphys... I can absorb more than one spell at once. And I know where I can find someone with healing magic. Yeah. I'm sure she'd even come over here to help if we just asked!"

Alphys just laughed. It was... an almost sobbing sound. "Why do you keep making me feel so much hope?" she said quietly. "Okay, you... bring your friend. I'll get the others ready... just in case."

As I walked back through Waterfall towards the ruins - taking my time, this time - I turned my attention inwards, trying to feel out the whirling, heavy magic inside me. While I focused, I could almost hear voices, faintly, from that magic, from the monster. I focused more intensely, trying to make those voices out...

"Howdy!"

I got pulled back out to the real world by the voice of my flowery friend. My Flowey friend? Flowey's voice. "Oh, hey man! What's up?"

"That's my line! What are you doing, going back and forth from the ruins over and over? Can't get enough of Toriel's pie?" The flower grinned.

"Well," I said, "Alphys has this big problem she wants help with."

Flowey stopped grinning. "Oh really? Which problem?"

"Well, there was this big dog..."

"Oh! The amalgamates!" Flowey said, "Yeah. I know about it. There's no way to help them."

"Actually... I think I might be able to do it." I said.

"What? How!" Flowey said, his voice growing louder, and excited.

"Well, I can absorb monsters, which you helped me figure out. And Alphys suggested that I could use how I spin the magic inside me around to separate more than just my magics, but also stuff I absorb!"

Flowey finished my thought, "...so you can separate the amalgamates from each other, and remove their determination! Hehehe... that's wonderful! Yeah... that's definitely worth some walking!" he gave a huge grin the entire time. "And you can do that all... just by spinning around?"

"Well, yeah, kind of. That and absorb monsters I guess."

He just started laughing. For a really long time. "Uh... Flowey?" I asked, and he dived into the ground, without even saying goodbye.

"Wow... he must be really excited about the amalgamates getting help!" I said, as I continued my walk. I'd completely forgotten about those voices, and made it back to the ruins without a problem.

I found Toriel out bug hunting. "Hey, Toriel," I said, casually, "would you be cool with helping some folks out with your healing spells?"

"Oh, child... did you accidentally hurt someone?" Toriel asked, immediately stopping. "Or did Undyne fall onto spikes again?"

I shook my head. "Nothing like that. Alphys has some people who need help. She made them immortal but something went wrong."

Toriel shuddered, visibly. "Determination." she whispered, her voice heavy with... hate? I wasn't sure, I mean it was Toriel, she's like made of mom, but a goat. Moms aren't supposed to sound like that.

"Yeah..." I responded, "I'm going to be removing it from the monsters."

"They are... probably innocent victims of some horrible experiment, then..."

"Alphys said they were going to die but she injected it to keep them from dying, but things went wrong."

"They always do, down that path." She stood, determination - not the red stuff, I don't think - in her eyes. Though I suppose her eyes did look a little bit red? I don't think that meant anything. "Very well. I will help you save those people, Touta."

"Great! I brought the first one with me, we can try it right in your house. Or wherever!"

"My house will do fine. I will have to start on a pie for when they're better."

"Awesome."

We went back to her house, and I said, "All right. So, you're going to need to cast a bunch of healing spells, and I'll absorb them."

"And then, child?"

"Jeez, call me Touta, Toriel. What, do you want me calling you 'mom'?"

"Would you like that?"

"Uh." I blinked. "Just... call me Touta okay? Please?"

"Certainly, Touta," she said, smiling.

"Okay. And then after I absorb the healing spells, I'll start to separate the monsters and the determination, and let the spells merge with the monsters while that's happening so it'll keep them alive. I might need you to cast a whole bunch of healing spells, we'll see, but for now, let's start with... hmm."

I closed my eyes and looked inside myself, at the swirling pile of determination-taffy dog. I counted the pairs of dog eyes and I eventually settled on seven.

"Seven spells." I offered my left hand, and Toriel started doing... magicy stuff. You know? It wasn't magic like wizard magic is what I'm saying. I absorbed it all just fine though - and I was ready to try this.

I planted my feet firmly on the ground, and tensed my muscles, spinning my blood - and the magic within - harder, faster. I could feel Endogeny stretch like taffy, at least at first - but then the red part, the 'determination', started to separate. And as it did, I felt the monster... monsters... start to stretch less, pulling in on themselves. They weren't quite separating right, though... and I could feel that they were in pain.

I figured, I probably couldn't heal them right if they were still all in one lump, so I had to turn up the heat, spin even faster. I tensed my muscles, focusing as hard as I could. I felt my body shake, but it wasn't enough, so I just pushed as hard as I could - until finally, the monsters started to pull apart. There were seven, and it was so tough to keep them separate even with the determination pulling away more and more, leaving only sticky taffy-strings around each of them. But they were separate now.

Which meant it was time. All I had to do was take two lumps of magic inside me, and combine them while they're still inside me. Without slowing down the spinning because everything still felt like it was going to fling together the moment I slowed. And fast because my everything was starting to hurt.

And I wasn't quite sure how to do that. Let alone seven times at once! I could feel how each individual blob of magic - uh, the monsters, that is - was in tatters, held together by that stringy red magic.

So I just kind of... tried to shove a healing spell into one of the monsters. And it worked! Kind of. I could feel that the monster was better, but not good. It was going to take a few healing spells for every monster.

I extended my left hand, and I said to Toriel, "Just start casting more and I'll tell you when."

I pushed every healing spell I got into those monsters, one after another, as the last red threads pulled away from them. Finally, I was done. I could slow down and relax. I held my hand out and shot seven giant dogs out. Well, okay. Like five giant dogs, and then two dog-sized dogs, but they were huskies which are still pretty giant, just by dog standards. They slowly got up and looked around, gaining their bearings.

That's when I noticed all the blood that was splattered around the living room. "Oh god, Toriel, what's wrong? What happened?" I asked, as I looked at her and she was covered in blood.

"This all came out of you," Toriel said. "I know you said you were immortal, ch... Touta, but, are you all right?"

"Yes." I was very all right. I just saved a bunch of people from a horrible medical condition, by doing something only I could do. The satisfaction of saving lives with my power... it filled me with determination. 


	23. Filled

And that's how I ate snail pie with a bunch of dogs.

It was an interesting experience, in a bunch of ways. The first way it was interesting was when one of the dog monsters - the oldest looking one, long beard and everything, knelt before Toriel. "My queen, your power has saved us, alongside the honorable Sir Konoe."

Toriel responded, quietly, "You are welcome, but I am no longer your queen."

"You shall always be my queen."

"I baked pie for everyone," she said, "Everyone have a seat, it will be ready very soon."

There weren't nearly enough chairs, but it was okay. A number of the dogs were fine with the floor. I met them all properly while we were waiting on pie - there was Greatest Dog and his brother Grand Dog, and their father, Great Grand Dog, the oldest dog in the underground - he's the one who knelt before Toriel.

There was also a dog wearing a fedora called Doge; not a name, but a title, he was apparently part boss monster. He tipped his hat politely when I introduced myself.

There was another old, grizzled dog who introduced himself as Doggone. He was wearing very thick glasses.

There was also a huge, just ridiculously built dog wearing some weird wrestling harness thing. He introduced himself as Zardogz, in a thoroughly scottish accent.

The two dog-shaped dog monsters introduced themselves as Sweetheart and London. They asked about their son, Toby, but I hadn't met him.

As Toriel handed me a slice of pie, she asked, "Touta... why do you have that spinning around your waist?"

I said, "I'm not done yet. Alphys is getting the others ready. Toriel, would you come with me to help them?"

Toriel looked over to Great Grand Dog, then looked back at me. "I would prefer it if you brought each of them to me, thank you. I... can make pies more easily here." She said, hesitantly.

I narrowed my eyes at her. I'll be the first to admit, sometimes I can be dumb and miss stuff. But I didn't miss that. Then, in a flash, I put two and two together. "Oh shit your ex is the king and Alphys works for him! Oh man, that would be super awkward wouldn't it? I'm sorry I asked, I can definitely just walk."

"Thank you, for your consideration, Touta," Toriel said, giving me a smile.

So that's how I helped all the others, too - running to the lab to pick up the next "amalgamate", then back to Toriel's house, when I pulled out all the red determination stuff and split them up and healed them.

I didn't have any problem until one of them, I couldn't spin them apart no matter how hard I tried. I pulled the determination out, I pulled some of the monsters apart just fine, but there was still a bunch, like ten, that just would not split apart no matter how hard I spun them around. I removed the last of their determination, and they merged together until I couldn't tell them apart within me at all, anymore.

"Damn it..." I cursed, and Toriel responded, "What's wrong?"

I sighed. "I think I lost one. Might as well see how I screwed up..." I fired out an ice bird thing that looked like that comedian I met in Snowdin, a couple giant carrot monsters, and a huge cat... thing.

The cat thing turned to me, once it was out. "HOI." It smiled at me, its face vibrating. "WE ARE TEM. WE ARE VERY THANKFUL THAT YOU HAVE SAVED US. WE MUST GO NOW, TO TEM PEOPLE - IT FALLS TO US NOW, TO FULFILL THE ANCIENT TEM PROPHECY." The giant cat... tem... thing... hovered into the air, and flew out of the house on a rainbow.

Basically everyone present was speechless. "Is that... normal?" I asked.

Toriel sighed. "For Temmie? Yes. It is normal for Temmie."

"Okay. I don't feel bad about it anymore, thanks."

The rest of the separations went well, and finally, I separated the very last of the amalgamated monsters, safe and sound. With each amalgamate, I ended up with more and more of that determination stuff. It started to feel heavy, all by itself. "Man, I guess I need to take this stuff back to Alphys so I can give it back to her. The determination stuff, that is."

Toriel said, "You should not take it back, Touta. Nothing good will come of it."

"Toriel, a bunch of people went from gonna-die to not dead because of it. Yeah, it was a rough road, but, like, so's recovering from a bunch of stuff that can kill you."

She sighed. "Touta... you don't understand. You don't understand what the price of that was. Who was hurt."

"Okay," I said, "Then tell me. What price? Who was hurt?"

Toriel didn't speak. "I... please, could you trust me on this, Touta?"

I sighed. "I'll... think about it. Oh! Hey! Could I borrow a sewing kit for a little bit? There's something I need to get around to in the ruins."

"Certainly, dear Touta." She hustled off, and soon came back, handing me some sewing items. "These are for cloth, and these are for leather," she said, "That should help with that dummy."

"Thanks. While I'm gone, I'll think about taking you at your word, Toriel... and could you think about explaining things to me?" I asked her, "I've got a... thing... about old ladies who think they know better and don't feel like they have to explain anything."

Without another word, I turned around and walked back into the ruins. 


	24. With

I found that old dummy and I got to stitching, fixing it up as best I could. "Hey," I said casually, knowing the dummy was like the other one, "Your, uh, relative. He's got some anger issues. I don't know if there's like monster therapists? But you need to find him one." He didn't respond, or move, but I'm pretty sure that dummy heard. I mean, the other guy's name wasn't "lying dummy", right?  
After I finished up with that, I heard a voice calling out from behind me. I turned in that direction, jogging back along the path towards where I first entered the underground. "Hello?" I called out, but there was nothing there but that quiet patch of flowers, struggling underneath the scraps of sunlight from above.

"Oh hey." I looked up. There was an entrance to the underground right here above my head, wasn't there? And the barrier had to be here too, then. So... I could break it.

I could just imagine that king's face when I walked into his castle and notified him that I was the reason the barrier was gone. I cracked my knuckles. I already had my hoop around me, from holding all that determination... so it was just a matter of getting up there.

I jumped onto the wall of the cavern and started sprinting up that wall, using a technique my bro Kuroumaru showed me a while back. I could just void shunpo up but that'd be more work, and this way I could easily focus.

So, I dashed up the wall towards the hole. I brought my right fist back, I lept towards the hole, and I focused my Magic Can-

* * *

I looked up. "Uh." I looked around. I was back at the bottom of the cavern! "What the hell?"

I recognized a jarring transition like that from somewhere. "Kirie?" I asked, my voice filling with hope, "Did you learn to turn invisible, then find me in the multiverse, and now you're screwing around with me?" There was no answer.

I sighed. "Damn it."

I looked back up. If Kirie didn't do something, then... what happened? Did I gain her power somehow? That would have required the barrier to kill me, though. Like for reals kill me, not just gib me. I just get back up after getting gibbed. Only one way to find out.

I jumped onto the wall and started running up there again. This time, instead of rearing back to hit the barrier I focused on defense, raising my arms in front of me. I lept towards the hole and got ready for whatever would happen.

My arms hit something solid so hard that my face squished against them. Then the rest of my body hit that something solid. Then I fell back to the bottom of the cave. So... not the barrier, then.

"What else was I doing though?" I scratched my head. "I guess... using my Magic Cancel?"

I focused my Magic Cance-

* * *

I looked up. "What the hell, now I can't try to make magic go away without time warping? Damn it!" Frustrated, I punched at the wall, and cracks formed in the solid rock.

"Oh." It occured to me, maybe all this was because of that 'determination' stuff I'd absorbed from those monsters. It would probably be working again once I got to the lab and gave it back to Alphys. "All right."

I turned and started walking back, when I realized I hadn't thought any about what Toriel said about the determination. "Oh damn it! I'll... just ask her first." I mumbled as I returned to her house.

"Toriel!" I asked, walking inside, "Have you thought about what I said?" She wasn't in the living room or kitchen. I walked through the house, checking rooms, not seeing her. "Where the heck is..." I spotted some movement out of the corner of my eye, and I glanced over. But it was just the hallway mirror.

I turned to walk away, but I stopped. "Wait." I was the only one in the hallway.

And I don't cast a reflection.

I turned back and walked directly in front of the mirror. A child looked back at me.

They were short, and wearing a striped shirt. Their cheeks blushed, deeply, as they stood in the same position I was standing. I raised an arm, and they raised it. I cocked my head to the side a little, and they tilted their head to the side a little. I opened my mouth and asked, "Who are you?"

And they said, "Greetings, Touta Konoe."


	25. Confusion

"No," I said, "That's who I am? I asked who you were. Like, what's your name?"

They smiled. "My name is not relevant. I am an immortal. Like you. Touta. You have allowed me to live again."

"Oh. Well, that's cool! I am totally behind reviving immortals!" I gave my mirror image - the mirror image - a big thumbs up of approval. "But, uh, do you just... live in mirrors or something?"

"I am inside of you. For now. You can sense me, can you not?"

"Uh..." I shrugged. Then I realized I did have one pretty good guess. "Oh. That red stuff! Determination. It makes monsters immortal... and it... reincarnated you?"

"In a sense," came the mirror image's cool reply. "I have a request to make of you, Touta."

"Sure, anything I can do for a fellow immortal!" I gave a solid nod.

"Excellent. Please terminate every monster in the underground."

"What." I blinked. "Okay. When I said 'anything I can do', I, uh... kinda wasn't thinking mass murder was on the 'do a favor' list here. I hate to go back on my word and all, but... no!?"

"I know you wish to do so. And you need not feel guilty." The immortal in the mirror said, still smiling, "They all deserve to die. They have earned it."

I blinked. Then I facepalmed. "Oh this has to do with the shit Toriel's not telling me, doesn't it. Jeez. When I get back, first thing I do: Long-ass boring talk with Yukihime. I'm getting tired of being blindsided by all this stuff."

"Then you will oblige?"

"Hold up, lady. Lady? Dude? Kid?"

They shrugged, and gave a slight head shake with it. "Male, Female. Child, Adult. Human, Monster. My form has long been neither. Address me how you wish."

"Okay, cool. I get you, I'm familiar with gender identity stuff, my BFF identifies as male and I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a dick. Actually, maybe I should talk with Kuroumaru about that, I don't actually know if they're feeling better about all that, they were pretty angsty about it that one time... Okay, sorry. I'm getting off track. The best I can say to you is... I'm not going to say, absolutely not... yet. I can understand that... maybe sometimes people do need to be killed. But!"

"Yes?"

"You're going to have to tell me shit! I wasn't even really planning on... just not filling up like a test tube or whatever when Toriel asked me without explaining, I'm definitely not going to kill anybody without a damn good reason!" The thought occurred to me that Kuroumaru would be proud. He was always talking about how I needed to trust strangers less. "And! If I'm going to kill a lot of anybodies it's going to need to be a really, really damn good reason!"

They closed their eyes. Then opened them. They glowed bright, luminescent red - the color of determination. "Very well. I will explain." Their head turned to the side, suddenly, and I saw something disturb their calm exterior. Fear? Maybe surprise? Not sure. "I will speak with you further when you next sleep."

"Why not now?" I asked the mirror, and I heard Papyrus ask, "Why not what, Touta?"

I turned to the side, and I saw Papyrus and Sans and Toriel. Sans was holding a quiche for some reason. "I am sorry I am late in returning, child. We were distracted. Who were you speaking to?"

I turned back to the mirror - and I saw nothing. "Huh. I, uh... I was just... thinking to myself, I guess."

"Would you like some quiche, Touta?" Toriel asked, "Sans made it."

"Don't sell yourself short, Tori, you helped."

"I suppose, Sans. I guess we made it together."

"Aww, Tori. Don't be so cheesy."

When the laughter died down, I said, "Uh. Actually... I'm not hungry. Like, at all. But... would you mind if I took a nap in that room you've been letting me stay in?"

"Touta, you may stay as long as you wish." Toriel gave me an angelic smile. That immortal had better have a damn good reason if they wanted me to kill that adorable old goat-lady.

"Cool."

Toriel and Papyrus turned to go eat quiche, and Sans walked up to me. "Yo, Touta," he said. "Hey, uh... there anything you want to talk about?"

I stopped and considered. "Not yet," I said. "But... maybe."

"Okay. You know where I live, if you need me," he said.

I nodded. "Yeah. I hope that won't come up. Thanks, man."

"Oh, and, hey. That applies to any issue. Anything. At. All," Sans said, with significant slowness.

"Uh. Okay. Peace man." I gave Sans a wave and walked into 'my room'. I let the hoops clatter to the floor as I relaxed and-

* * *

I walked into 'my room'. "Wait seriously? Argh... I guess I can't just put down Determination, then. I'll just have to sleep while hulaing. I... did that a little at the Witch's place, I guess..." Not that I liked having to do it, since the reason I had to figure it out was because my heart stopped every time I did. Well, now I guess time stopped instead.

Anyway. It was time to take a nap. While basically standing.

Long story short - and it's long because I was trying for a while - I suck at that. I was gonna have to be pretty exhausted, probably, to be able to fall asleep on my feet for any amount of time. And that got me pretty frustrated - I wanted answers! I swept out of my room, walking downstairs towards Snowdin. Maybe a walk could clear my head. Or make me sleepy.

I wasn't even past what was left of the door before I heard a high-pitched voice. It sounded concerned. "Touta!" the voice cried. "Have you been doing anything weird?"

"Yup, I've been trying to sleep while standing up." I grinned. "Sup Flowey."

"Huh. Why, uh... why hula? Aren't you done with the amalgamates?" Flowey asked. "Are you gonna fight someone?"

"No fighting," I said, "I did that fixing thing I told you about and now whenever I drop the hoop time... does stuff. I think it's because of all the determination I'm carrying."

"Oh?" He grinned. "Like... jumps back a few seconds? So that's what it was."

"Yeah! You could tell?"

"Yes. Because..."

* * *

I swept out of my room... then stood there, cluelessly.


	26. Seeking Revelations

"Huh. I didn't drop my hoop or anything. Strange... maybe... I'll try walking again. I'll figure out whatever's doing that." I set out, and before I got to Snowdin I found Flowey on the path, waiting. "Hey, Touta!" Flowey said. "Notice anything odd going on?"

"Yeah," I said, "You... can tell when time jumps, can't you?"

"More than that," Flowey said, grinning. "That last 'jump'... was mine."

"Oh!" I blinked. "Holy jeez! Flowey! You're an immortal!"

"Oh?" He said, "Being able to do that... makes me an immortal?"

"Yeah!" I said. "It happens when you die, right? I know someone with powers just like that!"

Flowey's eyes grew wide. "You do?" Flowey asked, frantically, "Tell me! What is their name? Is it Chara?"

"Uh, no... it's Kirie... I've never heard of anyone named Chara." On the other hand... I have recently met someone new. Maybe that person was Chara? "But, hey... Flowey. This Chara... little kid, rosy cheeks, wants to kill everything?"

The flower's eyes grew wide, and so did its grin. "Yeah. That's them. Where'd you see them?"

"In the mirror?" I shrugged. "They said they were inside me, though. Which sounds so weird when I say it. But I guess it had to do with the determination."

"Uh..." the flower looked like he'd be shrugging too. She? They? Flowers are... actually plant sexual organs aren't they. And most plants aren't traditionally male or female either now that I think about it. This stuff is complicated.

Then he grinned. "Okay. So... they talked to you. What'd they say?"

"Uh... that everyone deserved to die?"

"Well..." Flowey said, slowly. "I know a little bit about what they're talking about, I guess."

"Hmm?"

"I mentioned the king has six souls, didn't I? Human souls. How do you think monsters get human souls, huh?"

"Uh... oh. No..." That was why Undyne wanted to kill me. That's why sentries attacked folks who looked human. That's why that shopkeeper seemed sad.

"Yeah, these monsters have been murdering humans. Kids! They've been at war with humans... for hundreds of years, now. Kids fall down here... they die. You've just been strong enough to fight back. So of course they'd act nice to you!"

I sighed. "Damn it... this is the kind of situation that sucks for everybody, isn't it?"

The flower said, "Yeah. In this world... it's kill, or be killed. People might pretend to be good... but they aren't." He grinned.

I frowned, and looked down at my fist, feeling pretty damn impotent. A lot like how Sayoko, or Gramps, made me feel, when I thought about what made them. "I've heard people say things like that about my world... but... I don't believe them. Yeah, things suck right now. But you know? I think we can always make them a little better today. And then the same tomorrow and the day after. Forever."

"Pretty easy to say that when you can't die," Flowey snarked.

I grinned and looked at him, and he shied away for a moment before I said, "Yeah. Guess it is. And it's gotta suck for all the folks it doesn't get better for fast enough, you know? But... I dunno. I'm just gonna go forward and do everything I can... for humans, and monsters. You want to help, Flowey?"

The flower looked away. "I... don't know, Touta. I want to help Chara. And if that's what Chara wants... but you... you really can't die. How can this world be 'kill or be killed' if there really are people who can't be killed?" He trailed off.

I tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to mind. I got the impression that the flower had some issues of his own, but I had no clue how to help him with them.

Then he looked up at me. "Touta. I want to come with you to your world. Maybe Chara does too."

I blinked. Then I grinned. "Sure, man. You're immortal... and I guess Chara is too? So you guys could even join UQ Holder with me! I, uh, don't know if they'll make a flower into a number like me... or where they'll get a suit for you... or Chara... but I guess you don't need to get paid very much anyway.

He grinned back. "Don't worry, Touta. By the time I'm done helping you get home... I'll be able to get my own suit."

"So, does this mean you'll be helping me?" I asked.

"What'd you say to Chara?" Flowey asked, "I want to know that first."

I sighed. "Haven't given them my answer yet. I need to be able to sleep for them to talk to me, I guess, and I need to put down my determination to sleep. And if I put down the determination time rewinds. Maybe I could give it back to Alphys... but I'm not sure if I could still talk to Chara without it."

He said, "You said you used a mirror. What if I got you in front of a different mirror?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, maybe. That could work."

"Well, let's get back to that lab then. The secret one that had the amalgamates in it. There's a huge mirror there, and it's easy to make Alphys leave if she's there."

"Maybe Alphys can help?" I asked.

The flower shrugged. "Probably not. She's... from after Chara's time."

"So you're pretty old, then, aren't you?" I asked. "Like Toriel."

He didn't respond for a moment. "Yeah. Like Toriel. Come on, I'll meet you at the lab." He ducked into the ground.

So I went for a walk to Hotland. Said hi to a couple monsters, let that one monster kid poke at my hula hoop, then grab onto it and hold on like I was a merry-go-round until he eventually got flung off into the snow - he said it was "super awesome". Which did make me feel a bit better, I was still kinda down about the whole human-monster war thing. Rest of the walk was nothing interesting.

Flowey was by the door. "She's out right now, you should be able to get in easy. That way you won't be disturbed when you... talk to Chara."

"You want to talk to Chara too?" I asked. "Seems like you know 'em, right? It sounds like they're your friend."

The flower looked at me like I was about to step on him or something. I guess? Look, I can't read him that well, he's a flower, I don't know flower body language or anything like that. He looked really surprised. For a flower.

After a long time, they answered. "You can... ask them if they want to talk to me."

"Okay. Did you guys get into a fight or something?"

"Yes..." Flowey said, quietly. "We... got into a fight."

"That sucks. But, you're both immortals, right? You guys need to think of the long term, you guys gotta make up sometime! It'd suck if you guys were on bad terms forever, wouldn't it?"

Flowey didn't respond to that. "You should be able to find the mirror in the lab no problem. Just... look around." He ducked under the ground.

"Man... sensitive issue. Oh shit! I never asked how long ago it happened! It might have just happened or something! Uuuuuughhhhh I'm such a moron..." I facepalmed at my own stupidity.

Well, nothing else to do but to look for some answers. Finally. I walked into the lab to find a mirror. 


	27. Mirror Image

Finding it didn't take too long. I stared into the blank mirror, and I said, "Sleeping's not really an option anytime soon. And I really want answers, and nobody's been giving them to me. So... I'd really like it if you, like... came out again, and talked to me?"

A minute passed, and I started to feel like an idiot. Another minute passed, and I finished feeling like an idiot and just started to get annoyed. I sat down in front of the glass, staring at the empty hallway on the other side.

"Look. If you're related to that red stuff... then I know you're there. I can still feel it. You? Is that where you are? Are you like, in the red stuff, or are you just... I dunno. But why do you want to hurt people? Yeah, the folks here... aren't perfect. But they're good people, deep down. They deserve to live, and be free. Like anyone else." I gave a shrug.

I sighed, and scratched my head. I was just starting to wonder if maybe I'd been hallucinating or something, when I looked up and saw that kid again. Blushing, smiling. "I apologize. I was busy."

"Uh." I shrugged. "What were you busy doing...?"

"Talking. Have you considered charging rent?"

"What. Oh! You must have talked to Kitty! She is in there, isn't she? Man, I should figure out how to ask her for advice or something."

"That is not the name... but, yes. Nevertheless, you wished to talk, did you not?"

"Yeah. What's with wanting me to kill people?"

"My reasons are my own."

I crossed my arms. "Well, they aren't my reasons, so then my answer's no."

The child sighed, and spoke after a moment of thoughtful-looking silence. "Very well. I will concede. I owe you my reasoning. It is twofold; first, I desire petty revenge. Many of the monsters of the underground have... wronged me." Their voice dropped, there.

"Okay, what's the other reason?" I asked.

The child closed their eyes. "It is to provide mercy. The monsters can not survive outside the barrier. Humans will imprison them again... or murder them. And they will be cruel in doing so. Cruelty hurts monsters the most."

"Oh... 'cause intent to kill actually hurts monsters, right? I remember that from the library..."

"Yes. The monsters have no hope. Not down here, and not on the surface. It is best to terminate them while they still have some dignity left. Before they have finished lowering themselves to the level of the humans outside."

"Hmm."

"Well? What is your answer?"

"Hrm. I don't know about giving anyone a mercy kill. Like, uh, yeah, life can suck... but death's the end, you know? Unless you're like a ghost but that's like still being alive. Kinda."

"There are things worse than death, Touta Konoe."

"I dunno about that."

"I can show you."

"Uh?"

"Yes." The child in the mirror winked out of existence, and the red stuff inside me quivered and strained, as if moving under its own power... then grew still again.

The child in the mirror winked back into the mirror. "I... need your help. Your power is too great, and binds mine. You would have to use your power to integrate with the magic inside of you."

"Hmm. Okay. And this is the last part of your argument?" I asked. "After that... you got nothin'? You'll be ready to listen to my answer?"

The child was silent, for a moment. Their answer came with a resigned sigh - I heard a lot of... age, I guess? In it. They sounded like Karin, that one time... "I suppose."

I felt my resolve fill me. If I can't save this immortal from the weight of their past, from the weight of their sins? How could I ever save my friends? How could I ever help Kirie or Kuroumaru or Karin... or Kitty? I drew the determination into my hand. It was a massive, bright ruby sphere. "Complexio."

And that was kind of a horrible mistake. My mouth screamed in anger and hatred. My eyes shone. My Magia Erebea covered my arms in an instant. I wanted to kill. I wanted to hurt. Because I hurt.

I fought it, as I'd fought it before - but it was so strong, now. I grit my teeth and strained my muscles until I felt like they were going to tear off my bones, and focused harder than I ever had. "Getting... sick... of... this... bullshit!" I growled.

I went unconscious, still standing, while suppressing it.

So, I guess I was about to get some sleep after all.

And what's a Magia Erebea-induced unconscious spell without some crazy dream? 


	28. Touta's Nightmare

My knife flew in an arc, into a throat. Blood flew everywhere, splattered upon my clothing. Just like the last five swings before it. This time an entire mob came to murder me.

And they succeeded, again and again and again. But people are predictable. While screaming at the witch, at me, they would always dodge in the same direction from my blows. After enough times... even the smallest targets are easy to hit.

More voices, more throats. The words weren't important, the movements just the give-and-take flow of combat, body parts categorized into threats or targets or pointless.

Finally, everything settled. Nobody moving but me. I wiped the knife clean on a patch of the ground - in its well-polished surface I could see my face. My pale skin, marked by deep blush on my cheeks. I was just a child - but I felt so old, all the time. So exhausted. I forced a smile onto my face - I'd won, after all, why not smile? - and moved on.

I didn't want to live. But I didn't want to die more. I cared less about the exhausting task of interacting with humans over time, eventually avoiding humanity more and more, hiding in the wilderness bordering human settlement, taking quietly from clotheslines and picking up things discarded long enough to be stolen. That way nobody would notice I didn't age.

I was never strong, I was never fast. I tried to be, but I couldn't. My unaging body, its control of time, so powerful even death would not kill me, was my power and my prison.

I started to get curious about things - that happens when you want to live, but have no reason to. I would walk into deserts to see if I could cross them, then just open my eyes back where I started after my shriveled body gave up. I swam across rivers and seas by doing it again and again until I found the currents that would carry my small body along with ease, after death after death from drowning. And I explored caves by jumping down holes again and again until I lucked out and landed in a way that didn't kill me, and then just killed myself whenever I wanted to leave.

The last cave I explored had people in it. They weren't human, but they were people, moreso than any human I'd met. They accepted me, they loved me. They never questioned why I didn't age. And I loved them. But that utopia would not last.

It started when I saved someone with my power. A young monster was wounded heavily - the cavern wasn't always safe, for those exploring its frontiers. I didn't really know what I was doing - I just did it. I gave them a part of myself, and they got back up. And I knew I was why. She knew too. I have been able to feel her heart beating ever since.

Knowing I had that power made my heart ache. I could help the people I loved. They were the ones who deserved the surface - not humanity. With my power... we would win that war. My adoptive brother agreed.

I wasn't even worried when we were dying. We would just do better next time, after all. I wanted to live. I had a reason to.

But he did not. Confronted with war, he wanted peace, and he preferred death over victory. Our plan had failed.

I couldn't bring us back alone. When I tried... something went wrong. I came back, alone. In my own body. That was already dead. I couldn't go back. I was conscious, but could not move. Not living, but unable to die. My body was no longer my power, but had become only my prison.

My body had been preserved, though - I could while away the aeons in a coffin. I was okay enough with sleeping. It was resting in peace, in a way.

But the world was not done with me yet.

The child I helped talked to my father. My father talked to his people, his researchers. My corpse was donated to science.

They found my soul. My power. And they started tearing out bits of me for themselves. The pain made me learn how to make my body move, a little bit. I would scream. I would shake. I grabbed someone's hand and looked at them, through my empty eye sockets, before they hooked me up to their extractor. He knew. He could have helped. He didn't care.

But I still had power over my soul, inside them. And I was filled with hatred. I erased them, all so my broken body and soul could be put back in my coffin. All so I could rest again.

No longer trusting my father to give me peace, I turned to my mother, the last living being left that had not betrayed me. I made myself move, I made myself speak with my dry and shriveled voice. I asked for help, I begged for peace.

She took my body and buried me, watching over my grave. And that was the cruelest betrayal of all.

She buried me knowing I was not dead! She left me to suffocate! For my toxic corpse to be devoured, bite by tiny insect bite, over the hundreds of years to come!

There is no one I do not hate. There is no one who does not deserve death. It is mercy not to torment them as I have been tormented, with the curse of living.

Humans fell and died from the fall, again and again. But I transcend death. Each time, I tore part of myself off, shoved it into the fresh corpse. Reviving them. Filling them with life - my life, with their soul. Trying to channel my hatred through them, determined to bring my vengance and my mercy. Six children, six souls, I forced back through the veil of death, refusing to give humans the mercy I would grant monsters, cursing them with a small taste of my neverending life.

Then one fell and did not die. Too strong to reach out with my power, a storm inside that brought not hatred, but empathy. Powers forever devouring each other, a body that was not a prison but a battlefield, at war with itself, filled with hatred and the weight of painful centuries. Kindred spirits, to usher the world to the death it deserves. Every world, below and above alike.

What could he possibly say before the truth? How could he refuse? 


	29. Hospitality

I wiped the sweat off my brow as I finished the huge pot of stirfry. "Yeah, this'll do." I turned and stepped over to the nearby table.

The place was simple - a kitchen, a simple dining table, like the one I sat at many a time back in my little village with Yukihime. All of it was at the top of a skyscraper, so tall it touched the clouds.

I served the people sitting around the table. A couple little kids, and myself. Well. "Kids". I guess I was the youngest there, really.

"What is this?" One of the kids asked. A twisted grin played upon their lips, and their cheeks blushed deeply - and their eyes reflected confusion. "Where are we?"

"This is where I'll be giving you my answer," I said. "It's called a phantasmagoria. Right, Kitty?"

"I'm impressed you're able to do it," the other child said. She smirked, revealing a pair of unnaturally sharp incisors. She tasted the stirfry. "Outstanding work. Your memories of your cooking are much less humble than your memories of talking about your cooking." she observed.

I shrugged. "It's really just lots of practice cooking, anyone can do it. And lots of practice being in these things, too. You've been pulling me into them the same way, right? And Negi too. I don't think I would know how to bring anyone else into it, but I don't have to, do I? If it's just me and you guys, it's really just like lucid dreaming. Oh man! I can lucid dream now, can't I! Sweet."

The first child picked at their stirfry. "This is an unnecessary gesture. If it is in response to my argument, I apologize if sharing my memories proved overwhelming. I wished to be convincing."

"It was a good argument," I said, talking with my mouth full, "You lived it, after all. I can't tell you your life's not valid, you know?"

"Then you concur." They said. Chara said, I suppose. I think.

"Hey, your name is Chara, right? I wanna know for sure about that."

They were silent for a long moment. "...Yes."

"Cool. Anyway. Reason I'm talking to you in here is that I think Kitty can bring some perspective. She's older than I am, after all."

"What do you mean?" Chara asked.

"I mean I'm gonna say no."

Chara's eyes narrowed. I felt Chara struggling to wake up for a moment, but I felt like I had a good grip on things.

"What, you don't wanna know why? I'm doing this so I can explain stuff, you know," I said. "Plus you probably haven't eaten anything in a while. Have some stirfry. Or tell me what your monster parents made for you, you know, back before you hated them forever. I don't need to make stirfry."

"You are mocking me." Chara deadpanned.

"Uh. Sorry. I'm not trying to. It's just... for someone so old, you're acting like a kid. I mean... yeah, it sucks that you were in that position. But you aren't in that position now, right?"

"I still have no body. I exist at the whims of a flippant child."

"Well, you know, maybe when I get home we can change that?" I said. "There are folks back home who can build humanoid robots and stuff, you can get a new body maybe. One that's all yours. And folks won't judge you! Okay, actually tons of people will judge you and try to kill you. But you'll have us to protect you. Tell 'em, Kitty! Oh! And I'm not flippant!"

She laughed. "Touta, you might be the most flippant man I have ever met." She took a bite of stirfry. "Anyway. Why not kill everybody? What do their lives matter to you?"

"Jeez! Kitty! I thought you were gonna be taking my side on this!" I exclaimed, while the child grinned. "I know you aren't really like this."

"You're being flippant again, Touta. I'm the Dark Evangel, the most hated vampire in the world... the most feared evil mage. What do I care about the world?" She took a bite.

"Kitty, don't give me that crap." I said as I crossed my arms. Okay. Maybe I was pretty flippant. "I know you put that up as a front, because you've been hurt too many times. But I know you. I remember, the saddest expression I've ever seen you take was after you killed someone. Even in self-defense!"

"That may be true," She said, "My persona as the most evil mage is just a mask. Something I wear for my own reasons. But if you wear a mask long enough, Touta, do you think it can come off so easily?"

"Uh..."

"Take this pathetic child," She gestured to Chara. "They have been wearing that grin - that knowing, mocking, sadistic grin - for so long they probably don't remember what a real smile is like. This, too, is something an immortal must deal with - wearing our masks so long we can no longer take them off. To find that what once protected and comforted us now restrains us. What do you say to that, Touta?" She gave her own 'twisted' grin, a sly, knowing smirk. I could clearly see that 'mask' she was wearing, as the cliche-filled, morally ambiguous villain. Or, maybe anti-hero? Either way. This Kitty might only be like, a mind-duplicate downloaded to my brain somehow, but she's a ham. I wonder if Castlevania is secretly like her autobiography or something, because I could totally see her being all "WHAT IS A MAN?"

"Jeez, Kitty." But then I put together what she actually meant. "Oh. OOooohhhh..." I stood up, walking slowly around the table, looking down at Chara.

Chara's twisted smile never vanished. If anything, it grew more intense. I could see their body tense up. They were expecting me to fight. They... probably always expected that, I guess? I think maybe that's a symptom of PTSD, right? Man, PTSD has got to be the hardest part of being an immortal.

"You... have me at a disadvantage." Chara stated. Took me a moment of thinking of my English to realize they weren't using a metaphor or anything like that. They were just being literal. An animal backed into a corner, trapped between a monster and his stirfry. They were shaking a little, not completely able to pretend to be composed.

I reached down and hugged 'em. "It's all right, Chara," I said. "I'll help you put a real smile on your face again. I'll help you be happy."

I heard a sob and I felt a knife jab into my neck. Right in the artery. "Hurk?!" I gurgled in confusion. I mean, it wasn't going to kill me, but ow. I guess a phantasmagorica is like lucid dreaming for everybody in it huh? So anyone could just have knives if they wanted.

I just kept hugging them. Blood steamed away from the wound as Chara's arm swung again and again, jabbing into my artery, splattering red droplets that evaporated away as my body regenerated.

She kept doing that for a while. Like, long enough that it started to get boring, a while. You wouldn't think you could get bored from being stabbed, but that's totally a thing. Immortality, am I right?

After a while, Chara's sobs gave way to full on crying. Then, I heard the knife clatter to the floor. "Got it out of your system?" I asked, my voice soft.

"I'm sorry..." Chara sobbed out, their voice never sounding more childish. "I'm so sorry..."

"That's all right," I said, my arms still around them. "You're here now, with me. I'll take care of you. I know you've heard that before... and yeah, I can't really say anything to that. It's your life and I can't tell you it didn't happen. But that doesn't mean you should give up. Things can get better. They can always get better." 


	30. Hospital

I opened my eyes in a bed, feeling well-rested. I didn't have my hoop around me, and caught off-guard, I suddenly struggled to-

* * *

I opened my eyes in a bed. I didn't have my hoop and without using it as a crutch I was going to have trouble maintaining-

* * *

I opened my eyes in a bed and I focused. Lying on the side while trying to do my Revolution was really-

* * *

My eyes snapped open and I lept to my feet, throwing the covers off of me as my mind focused. I had to get serious, Chara was counting on me, I couldn't just let them down! Uh... couldn't keep letting them down anyway.

I closed my eyes and I turned my attention inwards, to the blob of swirling red my body was still holding - and now, I knew, protecting. I tried to direct my voice towards Chara, within me. "Chara, I'm sorry! That doesn't hurt does it?"

I heard the response in my head, faint but clear enough. It wryly responded, "As deaths go, being released from your containing hold and snuffed utterly, instantaneously by the crashing torrent of warring cosmic powers within you is not that bad. It's entertainingly novel, in fact."

"Well, aren't you just a regular gourmet," I snarked back, before I realized I was being a jerk. "Oh hey, sorry. I'll try not to drop you, Chara. Honest, I'm not trying to kill you or torture you or anything just because you wanted to kill everyone!"

"The thought hadn't crossed my mind. Until now. Hmm..."

"Noooooo! I didn't mean to make you suspicious or anything!"

I... felt Chara give that grin. "Do not worry, Touta. I can sense, some, what you feel. I know you are truthful here, even as troubled as you are. Nonetheless. Please try to avoid mistakes."

"...you're a mean tease, Chara."

"I am. It is a habit."

"It's one of those 'mask' things, then, isn't it? Well, I'll help you break it, don't worry."

"Break what, Touta?" I heard, from outside of me, in Alphys' worried voice. I had been talking out loud, I guess.

"Oh, hey Alphys," I said. "Don't worry, only thing I plan on breaking is the barrier. Are you why I was in bed?" I gestured to the bed I was now standing on.

"Y... yes. You were just... standing there, and you wouldn't wake up. I was terrified the determination had... d-done something to you. Are you okay, Touta?"

"Yeah," I said. "The determination had a side effect, but it's cool. It's a good side effect now." I gave a big grin and a thumbs up.

Alphys gave a huge, visible sigh. "Oh thank god. It... it was like you were in a nightmare that never ended... So, uh... what was up with that hula hoop? I, uh, thought it might have been doing it so I took it off, but that didn't help. Do you want the hoop back?"

I clenched my fist. "Yeah. I might need it to go to sleep later, if I need the rest. I feel pretty well rested now though."

"That's good," Alphys said, clearly out of things to say.

"Okay," I said, cracking my knuckles, "Alphys, it's time for me to head to the barrier. I'm going to free you guys, and I need to get on my way home too. The sooner, the better."

"No! Uh... I mean... are you sure you want to do that, Touta?" She stuttered. "I'm, uh... not sure... if maybe there might be some... tests! Yes, tests that I can do to make sure you're fine after absorbing all that... determination?"

"I'm fine," I said. "I dealt with things. Now the only thing left to do is free everybody. You guys have been waiting for that a long time, right?"

"Y... yeah..." Alphys grew quiet. "Okay! I know what to do! Yeah. Okay, Touta. Give me your cell phone, and I'll give you instructions to get to the palace."

"Oh, it's not just a straight shot from here?" I asked as I handed over my phone.

"N... not really. Sorry. But it won't take long! Oh, wow, this is super old. Hold on a second while I upgrade it," she said as she tinkered with it. She disassembled it in her hands, popping out the case and battery with a level of casual expertise that I saw rarely in my life. I watched what she was doing, raptly, as she pulled out circuits and components and pulled new ones out of her coat to plug back in.

Within moments, she handed back a radically different phone. "This is awesome!" So radically different, in fact... "But... uh... why didn't you just give me a new phone?" I asked.

"Because this way you still have your contacts!" She said.

"I, uh... think I only have one contact."

"Now you have two! I added me to your phone!"

"Oh, sweet. Thanks, Alphys. You've been a real buddy."

"Yeah." She looked flustered. "Okay. Now, Touta... before you get going... there's this beautiful place in Waterfall... I think you need to see?" She asked.

I shrugged. "I guess. Will it be fast?"

"Yes." She nodded.

I nodded back. "Then sure. Thanks again for giving me a place to rest while I did all that! Now... let's go."


	31. Enter Mettaton

I strolled through Waterfall, hoop collapsed and stowed away, down the path. Alphys told me she'd call when I got to the place she wanted me to see, so really, I was just taking it easy.

Eventually I reached a point where I could see a castle in the distance. "Oh hey," I said to myself, "Is that the palace?"

My phone rang, and it was Alphys. "H-h-hey... Touta. Yes. That's the palace! What do you think?"

"It looks pretty cool, though it's really far away."

"Y-yeah. So, T-Touta... you can kinda f-f-fly, right?"

"Yes."

"Okay. You get there by flying there. Just... jump and go!"

"What?" I blinked, confused. "Then how the heck do you guys get there!"

I could hear the sound of Alphys stressing. It sounded uncomfortable. "You don't get it! You need to go, right now! He can see the same feeds! Now that he knows you can get around him he'll be coming for you!"

"Uh... what's going on, Alphys?" I asked into my phone.

"Please just go! I know I've lied a lot and I don't deserve to be trusted and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but Touta, please! Trust me! You need to run!"

I dug in my feet and lept forward into the vast chasm of the underground, taking hold of the earth as I ran through the air, one void-shunpo leap at a time.

"At least this gets me to where I'm going, even if it's a really weird way to do it," I mused against the howl of the wind against my face as I 'flew' through the cavern.

My phone rang again. I picked up, it was Alphys - though she was pretty hard to hear. "Touta... you need to go faster! There's a camera following you."

"Uh... aren't the cameras, like, yours?" I asked. "What's bad about that?"

"I'm not controlling this one! He is! And if there's a camera watching you... then that means he-" My conversation with Alphys was suddenly interrupted by a cold, metallic... foot? Burying itself into my cheek, as a man kicked me in the face at high speed. My neck snapped a little, but it was fine.

I careened downwards, the phone falling away from me. I recovered mid-air, lept downwards to grab the phone and pocket it, void shunpoed back upwards, and only then did I look up at my attacker.

He was a robot, and he looked super badass. And super, duper bishounen. He had long, flowing black hair, flowing behind him in the wind. He had big shoulder jets that he was hovering with. One of his arms was a cannon, like he was Rock Man. There was a ghost with a camera hovering nearby. "Oh, hey, Napstablook," I said, giving him a wave.

The sweet bishounen robot looked down at me and said, "Well, darling. We meet, formally, at last. I am the voice of the underground, the one, the only, the astoundingly famous - Mettaton!" He posed. I void shunpoed upwards again because I was still falling. "I would just like to thank you - for you see, you were the one responsible for this amazing new transformation of mine!" I void shunpoed upwards again because I was still falling. "And now, to show my thankfulness, to you and to my fans, I'll..." I void shunpoed upwards again because I was still falling. "...Touta?"

"Yeah, what's up?" I asked, while falling. I void shunpoed upwards again.

"Could you... fly in a less distracting way? The camera can't follow you like that!" Mettaton said, gesturing down at me, and then up at me, and then down at me.

"Well... huh." I supposed I could just control my strength a bit when I move. Shunpo is a burst of strength... so I guess just a smaller burst would do, you know? I void-shunpo-hopped upwards, rapidly climbing upwards as I tried to find a balance between too much force and not enough.

After a minute, I got it down to just jumping up and down in midair about ten feet. "Heh, it's like I'm like a video game character with infinite midair jumps."

"Is that the best you can do?" the robot drolled.

"...yeah probably. Sorry." I said, hopping.

"That's... adequate." Mettaton assessed with a small sigh. "Ugh, do you have no sense of cinematography?"

"No," I said, "So you like, film stuff?"

"As a matter of fact I do."

"Awesome!" I exclaimed. "What are you filming?"

"Why, my dear Touta... I never thought you'd ask." He aimed his arm cannon at me. "Why, I'm recording our fight... for posterity."

"Uh...?" I managed to get out before he shot me with a laser blaster. Only the laser blaster didn't fry me like a laser should, it hit me like a punch, and it was really strong, like way stronger than even Papyrus and Undyne. The blast caught me off guard, and knocked me out of the sky downwards. I felt - and saw - a stalagmite jut up through my chest as my body slammed into it from above. "Hrrrk?!" My heart flung away in some random direction, and more importantly, I couldn't focus on revolution anymore.

Because I was paying attention, I felt Chara die this time. Damn it. 


	32. Dialogue

I stood at a point where I could see a castle in the distance, cursing to myself. "Damn it, sorry Chara. I'll be on my guard this time!"

My phone started to ring, and I shunpo'ed out, crossing the long distance in bursts of speed. I already knew what that ringing meant as I answered it. "Hey, Alphys."

"T-T-Touta! Fly faster! He's coming for you!"

"This is almost as fast as I can go, Alphys. Is that 'he' the robot I was charging with that battery?"

"Uh..." Her voice grew quiet and sheepish. "yes."

"Okay. Sounds cool. Oh, talk later, being kicked." I hung up and with my other hand I braced and knocked aside a powerful flying kick from an intensely bishounen robot man. "Oh, hey."

"Well, darling, you're everything they said you were. I am pleased to meet, formally, at last. I am the voice of the underground, the one, the only, the astoundingly famous... Mettaton!" I hopped in midair, trying to practice refining my shunpo control. "I would just like to thank you... for you see, you were the one responsible for this amazing new transformation of mine! And now, to show my thankfulness, to you and to my fans, I'll... Touta, darling, you appear to be... hopping. In midair."

I shrugged. "I don't have rockets or anything, this is how I fly. Sorry if the camera has trouble following me."

The robot sighed. "Well, it's all right. The camera doesn't need to get closeups terribly much. Not of you, anyway. Well! As I was saying," he... flourished, I guess, "To show my thankfulness, I am going to defeat you in mortal combat."

I cocked my head.

"Well? Anything to say for yourself before I crush you with my monstrous mechanical magical might?"

"...That's kind of a shitty way to thank someone?" I shrugged.

"Au contrare!" He declared. "There is no more glorious way to die!" He fired an energy blast at me, and I contorted out of the way to dodge. He fired another and I did a lop-sided void shunpo, with just one foot, which sent me spinning out of the way - it was a pretty good trick. He fired a third and I shunpoed past and beneath him, looking up at him to notice he hadn't followed me.

I waited as he looked around. "Uh, I'm down here," I said, and he spun around and exclaimed, "You skillful villain! Don't think you can evade me forever. I will take your soul, and cross the barrier - both saving humanity from the monsters... and emerging to the surface world as its newest star!"

"People keep telling me I don't have a soul though." I shrugged again. Also he had like no combat instincts. I had no idea why he was so strong.

He was silent for a long moment. "...Well! If you have no soul, then I suppose I must stop you to save our king!" Mettaton proclaimed. "Asgore Dreemurr is the beloved king of monsters, and his hatred of humans is the stuff of legend!"

"I heard he was pretty chill tho-woah!" I flipped backwards to dodge a flying kick, then braced myself as mettaton flew towards me and engaged in grappling, grabbing my hands with his - where did his blaster go? Did it like transform away?

Mettaton leaned close, "Do you have any sense of plot or direction? At all?" he hissed. "It is such a pain to film you!"

"Oh, uh... sorry?"

When he lept away, I asked, "Hey, man. I don't think your king is going to beat me up. And I'm not going to beat him up. How about we lay off the fighting thing?"

The robot chuckled. "You don't understand. Very well. I must reveal to you, then, the true reason for my attack. Do you remember ever performing... a tile puzzle?"

I blinked, and was silent for a long moment. "OH! That thing with the colored tiles?"

"Precisely!" The robot exclaimed, pointing a shapely finger at me. "And do you recall... what the green tile does?"

"It made a chime," I said with a shrug.

"Not what it did. What... it... does." The robot omened.

"Uhhhhh oh. It summons a monster to fight."

"Now you understand!" The robot exposited. "Our fight has been fated, since that very moment! And to that end... I manipulated Alphys into charging my battery with the greatest, and most dangerous, source of magic... in all the underground." He smiled slyly.

I slapped my forehead. "Oh damn, that's me, isn't it. That was the battery I charged! That's why you're so strong, that's my strength! Like, literally! This twist is awesome!"

"Thank you for your appreciation," Mettaton acquiesced, "But I fear you won't have an opportunity for a signature after the show."

I grinned. "Now that you've told me your secret, though... you won't be able to hit me again." He probably wasn't going to be able to hit me again anyway, honestly. I had his number. Now I... extra had his number, I guess.

I shunpoed to a rock and perched on it, taking the chance to focus. "Chara," I said softly, to myself, "If I screw this up... do you mind if we try it again? I don't know if I can carry him to Toriel's from here."

I didn't hear her reply. But I could feel her, a bit - and she seemed excited, somehow. Was hoping the answer was yes because I was all in on this.

Mettaton's rockets flared behind him and he shot towards me, barreling at inhuman speed, his fist extended to strike me. But I'm not human either.

I extended my arm to meet his, tensing, focusing my ki. His fist filled my open palm, and my arm flexed and tensed with my own superhuman strength, plying my power against, uh... my power, I guess. But while he just careened in with no idea how to follow through with a hit - I mean seriously who goes in for a punch with their arm already stretched out like that? I knew how to brace myself.

My fist stopped his. And he didn't die! I breathed a sigh of relief... then my other hand darted forward, enacting my plan.

My finger thrust forward, aiming below his eyes, just between them, moving faster than he could react. My finger rested against my target... and I lightly pushed.

"Boop!" I exclaimed.

Booping his nose didn't do anything.

The robot gained his bearings a moment later and flew up, gaining distance on me. "What... what was that?!" He interrobanged. "What was that attack supposed to do?"

I was really happy that 'attack' hadn't killed him, actually. I said, "Well, you know. You're a robot! So I figured that somewhere on your body, you know. You have an off button. I just gotta find where it is." I shrugged. "Not your nose."

"My word...! Did you think that just because I was a robot, that I must have an off switch on my body?" The robot gasped, clearly offended.

"Uh... well, uh, you know..." I stammered, just realizing that what I said was totally not PC. Actually, was 'PC' offensive too? I'd never talked about this with Ikkuu, robot ethnicity never came up!

"Because you're absolutely right!" He revealed. "But you'll never be able to strike it - it's not on the front of my body, but the rear... and I'm not going to turn my back on you in this fight!"

"What if I just... get behind you?" I asked.

He didn't say anything. He just smiled.

When he attacked again, it was easy for me to just shunpo behind him. I reached out, and... stopped.

His back was exquisitely sculpted, and... didn't have any switches or buttons on it. "Uh."

He spun around and kicked me in the head, and I barely raised my arm to block. As I careened away, he smirked, "What's wrong, my dear Touta?"

I lept away, and he turned and monologued, "Touta, darling... you think my off switch would stand out? I'm afraid not. You would need to know where it is before you could have any possibility of turning me off..."

I caught my footing, and my phone rang again. I pulled the phone out as I engaged Mettaton in combat with my other hand. "Hello?"

"Touta!" It was Alphys again.

"Hey, Alphys," I said, "I'm a little busy?"

"I know! I w-want to help!" Alphys yelled into the phone. "I built Mettaton, I... I know where the button is? It's meant to blend in, so you won't know where to find it otherwise."

"Oh!" I exclaimed. "That's awesome, Alphys! Where is it?"

"It's h-his left... his left... his... l-l-left..." she stuttered.

"His left what? Arm? Leg?" I ducked under a punch and shunpoed behind him, looking his left side over.

"His left b... left b... b-b-b... his cheek!"

"But Mettaton said it was behind him?" I dodged an energy blast from Mettaton and shunpoed up to him, firmly pressing a finger into his right cheek. "It's not working, Alphys." Mettaton looked a little peeved.

Alphys... sqeaked, I guess. It was a high pitched noise, and she did it for a while while I shunpoed all over to dodge an increasingly annoyed Mettaton. "Get back here and die with dignity!" he challenged.

"Yes!" Alphys eventually exclaimed. "It's on his r-r-rear!"

"Yes, Alphys, that's what he said! But I don't know where behind him it is."

"No, it is his behind!" Alphys screamed.

"Yes, I know!" I replied, and she squeaked again.

"I mean...!" Alphys stutter-screamed... scruttered? Alphys scruttered, "I mean his butt! It's on his left butt cheek!"

"Oh." Mettaton punched at me again and I caught his fist, swinging him around and poking at his butt.

"No...!" he breathed anticlimactically. His jets immediately went out and he started to drop, so I held on to his fist and got a grip on his wrist. "Okay, got him. Thanks, Alphys! You should look into that stutter you get, it's a serious problem."

"You... don't you think I'm perverted?" Alphys squeaked quietly.

"Why would I think you were a pervert, Alphys?" I asked as I shunpoed back over to the path, to put Mettaton's deactivated body down safely. "You want to pick a place for the power switch that won't be accidentally hit, after all! So the butt sounds like a sensible place to put it. That way people won't hit it by accident."

"Oh... Yeah... yeah that makes sense!" Alphys said. I heard Chara giggling, though I didn't know what was so funny. "Well, now that you've defeated Mettaton, uh... I guess you're home free now."

"Yup!" I said, "Thanks again, Alphys. You've been a big help."

I heard sobbing over the phone as Alphys choked out, "Th... thanks. Bye." before hanging up.

I turned back to look at the castle. "I guess from here it's a straight shot to the barrier. Let's do this, Chara." I tensed my legs and lept towards the castle.


	33. Home Again

I sped over the massive chasm until I reached a city.

The city was the strangest place - it was tall and metropolitan looking, tall, multi-story towers abound, but with old stone architecture. It was like pictures of Venice before the ocean rose.

The streets were bustling with monsters of all shapes and sizes, all going this way and that, talking with each other. I think a couple pointed up towards me as I shunpoed past. The monsters of the underground were diverse - and there were a lot of them!

"These are the folks you wanted me to kill, Chara?" I asked them, softly. "They look like they're just living their lives. Just normal folks out doing normal stuff. I wouldn't have had the heart to beat them up, Chara. I don't want to feel anything turn to dust in my arms again."

Chara's voice echoed within me, "You are as soft as I have been told you are, Touta."

"And what's wrong with that?"

"Perhaps nothing, for you. Ironic. Your softness does not hurt you because of your power. What will you do if your softness hurts others, one day?"

I shrugged. "Work harder, I guess."

"How naive. One day you will find the wall you can't pass just by 'working hard'."

"Then I'll ask for help from my friends. Like you, Chara." I said.

They didn't reply.

I landed on an elevated path, towards a building carved into the very stone of the mountain. The palace looked close now. "Man, I wish I could talk to the monster who built it." I said as I entered.

"You can't," Chara's voice came from inside me, softly, "The world has forgotten him."

"What?" I cocked my head as I stepped forward.

"My power includes memory manipulation," Chara said, "So I can remember when I move back. But... if someone else holds my power... I can use it to make them forget. To erase them."

"Oh. I remember that... from the dream you gave me. He was one of the people who ripped out your soul, huh. Well... can't say I blame you. I'd probably be pissed off about that too." I shrugged. If they were here in person I'd give them a big hair ruffle. "I'll protect you, so you never need to do anything like that again. Okay?"

Again, they didn't reply.

I approached a house. "Hey... this looks like Toriel's house." I said as I reached the door. There were monsters milling about, minding their own business.

"It is. Was."

"So... it's your house, isn't it?" I said. A couple monsters looked at me. "Is this your first time here?" One of them asked.

"Yeah," I said, "But I have a guide, thanks."

Chara's voice quivered in my mind, for a moment. "I'm... okay. Let's look around, Touta."

There were beautiful golden flowers in a vase in the front room. "Oh, those are buttercups, aren't they?" I asked, and Chara replied, "One way to find out is to eat a bit of one. Just one petal will do."

I tore off a petal and started eating it. It tasted disgusting and a little burny. "Bleh!" I spat the petal back out, as I heard Chara laughing within me. "Yup! It's definitely a buttercup."

"Jeez," I said as I walked towards the dining room - it was just like Toriel's. "Chara, you've got a sick sense of humor."

"It's because I'm so full of bitterness," they joked, and I laughed. "Your mouth's already stopped burning, though. It was so fast. You could probably even eat it, and be fine."

"I wouldn't want to though." I shrugged as I walked into the kitchen. There was a note telling whoever came in to help themselves.

"Oh, it wouldn't be too bad. Just stuff them into something sweet, like a pie." They sounded more relaxed, even playful, now.

"That feels like a terrible idea," I said. "Oh, hey. Are those recipes in the trash?" I leaned over.

"They're for... butterscotch pie." Chara said.

"Your mom makes really good pie," I replied. "Guess your dad misses it."

"I guess D... Asgore probably misses Toriel." Chara said.

We looked in the fridge. "Those are... snails." I said. "That's a lot of snails."

"He definitely misses mom." They replied, bringing a smile to my face when I noticed they didn't correct themselves.

We next walked down the hallway. At the first room, the voice inside me said, "Not yet, please. I am... not ready."

I shrugged and moved on. The door that would have gone to Toriel's room was blocked, but the door beyond that... "This is Asgore's room." Chara said, and I walked in, hoping to remind them of happy family days.

The room was a really normal room. It had a trophy for nose-nuzzling, which I guess is like a kissing competition for folks who have snouts, and a dresser with a hand-knit sweater saying 'Mr. Dad Guy'. I could feel a surge of emotion, not my own, from inside me. "He still has it," Chara said.

On the wall was an old - laminated, when I touched it carefully - macaroni art picture, saying 'For King Dad!'. "That was my brother's work." Chara said, with none of the hesitation towards naming him a family member. "His name was Asriel."

"He was the monster you merged with, right?" I asked.

Chara responded, "Yes. When his determination failed..."

"...do you blame him for it?"

I felt sadness from Chara. "No. I did at first, but he was just a normal child. I asked too much from him. I think, because I trusted him so much, because I was so close to him."

"Man, that sucks," I said.

"Yes."

"So, he wouldn't have been immortal like you, would he?" I asked. "He wouldn't have survived like you did, somewhere in the underground."

"No. He was a normal boss monster. They are unaging, unless they have children, but... your Kitty would say his immortality was 'weaker' than mine. He would not still live."

"Oh, that sucks. I guess you don't know many monsters anymore, do you?"

"I've seen a couple I recognize," Chara's voice within me seemed angry as they spoke.

"Oh, I guess you don't wanna speak to Flowey after all," I said.

"...that flower? I don't know who, or what, it is. I've never met it before. It's strange that the flower has my power, as well - I have trouble sensing it, like I do the many other monsters who have some fraction of my soul. Something about it seems different, I don't understand why."

"So would you want to talk to Flowey? They seemed to want to talk to you."

"I don't understand why Flowey would know I was with you, like he did, but I see no harm in speaking with him." Chara stated.

We looked over his journal, open to a really affirming little entry, then walked back out. I stood in front of the mirror a moment, looking at Chara within it. "It's weird to have a reflection," I said, "And weirder for the reflection to not be me."

"It has been a long time since I was last me," Chara said, their reflection speaking, their arms at their sides, "So long that it is strange that I am not someone else, even while I am within someone else."

"Woah," I replied. "Deep stuff."

I walked back, and stopped at the room Chara asked me to skip. "Hey, how about here?" I asked. Chara responded with silence. I opened the door and stepped in.

The door was a normal child's room, but it was different from Toriel's room - it had two beds, toys, some other things. The room seemed cared-for, things didn't have that layer of dust they get when they aren't used for a long time. Chara felt a pang of... something... when I looked over at one of the beds, so I walked over and stood over it.

After a moment, Chara spoke. "This bed is the comfiest ever. Why, I lay down in it once and I never woke up!"

"Ah. So... it's your... deathbed?" I asked.

"Yes. Yes. It is." Chara replied, their voice a bit colder as they faced the bed without a joke.

"Well, you've mostly gotten better," I said.

"No," they replied, "Much of my soul is still in the monsters of the underground. It was handed out, like candy, to empower others, to join monsters together... to make the monsters of the underground more powerful, in the hopes of breaking the barrier."

"Do you think all your power could break the barrier?"

"I don't know," Chara said, "The parts of me that went to the barrier. They are not a part of me right now. And it is hard for me to feel them. Maybe they are really far away."

"Do you not want to talk about this?" I asked.

"It is fine. I should talk about it. I know I am safe here. Relatively."

"Hey, I'm trying very hard not to drop you!" I protested.

I... felt... them smile. I don't know if it was that grin or not. "I know. Let's continue."

At the foot of the bed was an old knife. I'd seen it new once, in a dream. Now, though, the blade was chipped, the tip was dull, and the side of the blade was heavily scored. "You've used this a lot," I said.

"Yeah." Chara's reply was short, but the complicated emotions I felt from it said much.

"You're... a lot like Kitty, aren't you. You've had to kill to defend yourself, and you ran away to be safe from humans."

Chara didn't respond for a long moment. "Yes."

"I..." I could feel the weight of the past, again, an overwhelming oppression. I wanted to help Chara, to help Kitty, just like I wanted to help Sayoko, and even the Mage of the Beginning. But I had no clue how to save any of them. I felt like I couldn't save anyone, just then.

"She trusts you." Chara said, pulling me out of my self-pity.

"Huh? Who?"

"Your... 'Kitty'. She is a more terrifying demon than I could ever be. But. She trusts you. And she told me that I could trust you."

"She believes in me? That I can save her?"

"I think she believes you have already saved her."

"I don't feel like I've done anything like that," I shrugged.

"I would not know." I felt them mirror the sentiment.

I looked down at the weapon. "You don't need this anymore."

I heard them say, "It was a good gardening tool. It is retired. I am disappointed Asgore is not using it themselves."

I put the old dagger back. There was another box, near the other bed, and it contained a locket.

"Please take that," Chara asked.

I held it up and looked it over. The locket had the engraved message, 'Best Friends Forever'. "Is this yours too?"

"Yes. It's from my brother." Chara said. "He... he was a good person."

"Because he didn't want to fight, right?"

"Yes. But not just that. He was willing to fight, to free his people. He just wants to help people. Wanted to help people."

I put the locket around my neck. It felt warm, sentimental. "I would have liked to meet him." I said.

"I know he's dead," Chara said, "But... I still feel like maybe one day you will? It's a weird feeling."

I shrugged. "It's a weird world!"

We left Chara's room and went deeper into the castle. I stepped over a padlocked chain, because why would I stop to unlock it, and went downstairs, walking past the monsters milling about. I walked over a cliffside looking down on the city, then into a corridor, finally entering the palace proper.

The corridor appeared sunlit, with the light of sunset. It was beautiful, after being underground for days. I walked forward a bit, and spotted Sans standing in the corridor. I felt Chara's emotions, for a moment - they were angry. Angry at Sans, I think.

"Hey, Touta," The skeleton said. "Let's talk." 


	34. Keys and Mysteries

"Sup, Sans," I said, waving. "If you want to talk, that's fine by me."

"That's good," he shrugged, "If you didn't want to talk, I don't think I could've done much about it."

"Hrm?"

"So, I had this whole spiel I was gonna say, but... eh. For some reason it wouldn't feel right." He said, casually rolling his... eye sockets.

"Okay," I said.

"So, instead, hey, Touta. Got a personal question, you, uh, don't have to answer if you don't want."

"Okay, shoot."

Sans looked intently at me. "Have you ever murdered anyone, Touta?"

"No! I..." I responded, but... "Uh. Actually."

"What."

I took a deep breath. "I... guess I don't know?"

"That's, uh, an awfully big thing to just forget, Touta."

"It's really complicated," I said, "It's that.. I don't remember my past. And someone once told me... that I stood on top of 'failed sacrifices'. And... I'm really good at fighting," I said, my brain working quickly. "Like, really good. Like maybe I'm remembering things I already knew, sometimes..." my heart started to pound in my chest, and I stopped talking as my mind raced.

Sans pulled me out of it. "Well. I guess if you don't remember, then you don't remember. I think there's something you should know, though."

"Okay, what?" I asked.

"So. Some monsters can sense something we call 'LOVE'. It's a bit about how bad you are, and a bit about how murder hurts your soul. I've napkin calculated that if you killed a big portion of the monsters in the underground, you'd have a LOVE of 20."

"Okay..."

"Touta, your LOVE is higher than 20. Higher than I thought someone's could ever get. When I first saw you I thought you were a mass murderer up above. Or... well. Touta, do you even have a soul?"

I was quiet for a long moment. "I guess I don't. I'm just a clone. Not a real person."

"Huh." he said. "That, uh. Kinda explains stuff. I guess for someone without a soul, you seem pretty well put together."

"Thanks! Oh... that's a joke, isn't it?"

"Nah... Yeah. Sorry. Joking about things is kind of a habit. Sometimes laughing's just the best thing you can do, you know? Even if it's not the right thing to do."

"Oh. I get it." It was another of those mask things. "Man... I guess there's some dark stuff in your past too isn't there?"

Sans shrugged. "I feel like I don't need to say what it is. And even if I wanted to, there's not much I can say."

I shrugged, too, and almost spoke before Chara spoke, to me, instead. "I know him. We share that part of his past."

"Oh? What is it, Chara?" I said aloud, and Sans perked to attention as I rambled. "Oh! He was from the dream... oh. Oooh. Oh man." I remembered. Sans was at the laboratory where they ripped Chara's living soul out.

"So," Sans said, "They're... Chara. The first human to fall down here." He didn't add anything more, and something hung in the silence afterwards. I couldn't tell what. It wasn't combat tension, but it felt a little like it.

Chara broke the silence, not outside, but inside my mind. "He hurt me. And I hurt him." they said, but I felt like they weren't telling me everything.

"Sans? What happened between you and Chara?"

"I don't remember most of it," he said. "But... yeah, I feel like I did something wrong. I feel like I told myself excuses for doing it. And I feel like I made a promise to do it. Can I ask Chara something, Touta?"

I said, "Sure, they're right here. What's up?"

"Did we deserve it?"

Chara was silent. After a minute, I shrugged. "Iunno. Uh, that's me saying that, Chara isn't saying anything."

Sans nodded. "Should've figured. Touta... how about you stay here a bit longer?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. I'd like to free all you guys."

Sans nodded again. "Yeah. I figure. This wouldn't be for you. It'd be for... Chara, I guess." He pulled a key out of his pocket. "If Chara is what... who I think they are, they should be able to find what this is the key to. I think they should see it."

I said, "Okay. I'll, uh... consult the voices in my head. Gimme a minute."

Chara said to me, "Is that joker sending us on a wild goose chase through the entire underground to find a door?"

I said, "Well, if you don't know where it's to... yeah, I guess. We could ask him."

"Hmm. No. This sounds fun," Chara said. "It's been a long time since I've played a game like this."

I looked at Sans. "Okay, I, uh. I'll be going now I guess. We'll be going now. Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Sans said. "And if your friend ever wants to answer my question... they know where I am."

Heading back the way I came, I encountered Flowey again. "Touta, hey, you're going the wrong way to get to the barrier." he said.

"Yeah," I said, "I know. I've got this key from Sans."

"Oh," the flower rolled his eyes, smirking. "That's just a key to..."

Heading back the way I came, I... "Chara? Was that you? But I didn't drop you!"

"No spoilers." Their voice echoed through my head, and it felt like they were holding back anger in that voice.

"Huh?"

"Tell the flower. No spoilers."

"Oh, okay." I said.

I didn't walk long until a flower popped out of the ground. "Touta, what's wrong? Did something happen to Chara?"

"Uh. Oh, well... Chara wants to find out for themselves about the key."

The flower's eyes grew wide. "Oh! I'm sorry, Chara. I should've realized you would want to have some of the fun I've had down here!" He grinned. "That's all right. You take your time, and we'll move on whenever you get bored. I can wait... we're all immortal, here, after all..." he slipped back into the ground.

"Are you sure you don't know him?" I asked Chara.

"I have never met a flower monster before." Chara responded. "It is strange that he has my power. I can't sense him clearly like I can other monsters in the underground, who have less of my power. And I have never met someone else with this power before."

"I have," I said.

"You have? Who?" Chara asked, some emotion now slipping through their voice.

"Well, someone back home," I said, "A friend of mine, Kirie. Kirie Sakurame. She can set up 'save points' that let her go back in time when she dies."

"That is incredible," I heard in my head, "But you are from another world, are you not? This Kirie. They may be an alternate version of me in that universe."

"Or an alternate version of Flowey," I said.

"Yes," Chara said. "Flowey... does interest me, as well. I want to learn more about him. After the key, and... Sans."

"So, you gonna talk to him?"

"...I don't know. Let's focus on the key for now." Chara said. "It sounds... fun. We can investigate other things in time. After all. We are all immortal." 


	35. Unlocking Doors

So, I walked through the underground looking for doors to unlock.

I started jumping down into the city, and Chara thought to me, "I'm not sure it would be one of these. I don't think that pile of bones would have the key to a lock somewhere there is a lot of people. We should check somewhere there isn't many people."

"Oh, like..." I remembered just such a place, "That abandoned city in the Ruins?"

"Home? Perhaps. If he wishes to use our curiousity to delay us, somewhere like that might be a very good place to do it. There are many doors in Home, and not many monsters."

I turned and started running through the underground. "Did Toriel kick everyone out of the city before she closed the door?" I asked.

"Unlikely," Chara replied. "The ruins were already mostly empty when I was alive."

"Why's that?" I asked as I void shunpo'ed over the vast gulf between New Home and Waterfall, "I know what a crowded city looks like, and that city looked crowded. Wouldn't more people be living in Home?"

"New Home is closer to more sunlight," Chara said. "You remember that hallway. It's sun-lit. It's the most sun the underground gets. It's the closest to freedom the monsters can get. New Home is crowded beacuse they all want to live there, to feel the sun and hope to escape one day."

I ran faster, sprinting past that bird in Waterfall. "Well, damn. We might be immortal, but we better knock out this key thing fast so we can free all the other folks!"

"They can wait." Chara sulked. "They mostly don't even know you're about to free them, however you're going to do it."

I still didn't know how I was going to free them, really, but I was still confident I'd figure out something. As I ran through Snowdin, I said, "Well, that city looked big, so it'll take a while to check all the doors even if we go fast. Plus, don't you want to get to my universe so my friends can like, put you in a robot body or something? It can't be all that fun to be stuck inside me, with me letting you die a bunch of times."

"Well." Chara's response lingered in my head, like it was echoing, or maybe like Chara was thinking really hard. "You can go fast or take your time, however you like."

"Okay!" I said as I jumped through the crack into the Ruins, sprinting through.

"...So you've chosen to keep running." Chara said in my head.

"Well, yeah. Running is fun." I said. "It's a rush! And you said I could go fast. You did this sort of thing when you were alive, right, running around places just to run?"

"...I did do some of that."

I reached the city of Home and I started to look through its doors, one at a time. Open doors, unlocked doors, locked doors I tried the key on... there were hundreds of them. We went down street after street. I started to make it into training, shunpo'ing from door to door down the street in a blink, zipping through empty homes one after another, focused and searching.

After a while, Chara thought to me, "I would play here with my brother, when we were alive. It was fun. This place has not changed much since then."

"Oh? Are you getting bored looking through the city?" I asked.

"No. Any of hundreds of doors could be the one we're looking for. And, your going so fast is exciting, just as you say it is. You run so much faster than I ever did. Being inside your body feels... powerful."

"You're talking a bit like Yukihime does when she's being indecent," I said disapprovingly.

"I did not mean it in any perverse sense," Chara responded, "But given your adoptive mother, and your adolescence, and with some access to your thoughts and memories, I must say you are exotically prudish."

"You're doing it more." I said. "But at least you aren't running around in public in your panties or something. Yukihime is a shameless woman."

"Well, I don't have a body to be shameless with. Perhaps if I had one, I would be even worse."

"I don't believe you could be more shameless than Yukihime. I don't know anyone more shameless."

"Well, clearly, you don't know me. I could flirt with everyone I encountered." Chara said, and I could feel the playful teasing that came with those words.

"You wouldn't," I said, picking up on that playful mood and giving an exaggerated gasp.

"I would! I'll even flirt with your friends!"

"You're insane!" I laughed.

"Yes! Stark raving mad with flirting! I'll even flirt with your Kitty herself!"

"Oh, don't do that, she'll set you on ice." I said, actually kind of concerned that Chara was crossing a line with joking about that. "You'd have to restart from your save point."

"Do you mean set me on... fire?"

"No."

"Responding to flirting with violence seems excessive."

"Yeah, I guess," I shrugged. "Though come to think of it... I think I have a lot of friends who might be like that. It's probably not healthy, yeah, but what can you do?"

"Flirt with them..." Chara tempted. "Get them used to it!"

"What? No!"

"Yes."

"Even Yukihime?"

"Especially Yukihime!"

"But I don't even know how!"

"Oh yes you do, you're a natural! You're doing it rig-"

I reached the city of Home and...

"Chara, are you okay?" I asked, frantic at the sudden reset.

"I didn't know it was possible to be 'set on ice' before now. And I don't even have a body."

"What? What's going on?"

"It seems I did something that angered your Yukihime. Or... was about to. She is in here with us, after all."

"Huh?"

"Let's just focus on looking through those doors for now, now that I know why you are so adorably innocent."

"What?"

I reached the city of Home and...

Chara giggled, which seemed odd. Didn't they just die?

"Okay no more of that, whatever it is, let's get a move on!" I said, deciding that changing the subject might be best. "No more of this weird conversation, back to doors and keys."

"Yeah, take that key and thrust i..."

I reached the city of Home and Chara couldn't stop giggling even though I'm pretty sure they kept dying somehow and I had no clue what was going on in there. In me? In me-there.

"Uh..."

"Yes!" Chara cried between laughs. "Doors! Keys! That stuff."

I went back to looking for a door to unlock. 


End file.
